


Trials

by oooknuk



Series: Mutable Scars [3]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 15:43:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 60,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oooknuk/pseuds/oooknuk
Summary: Duncan and Methos finally return to Paris, but the return of an old enemy turns their lives upside down





	Trials

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Angst, language, violence, m/m. AU

My mother always wanted me to be an accountant, believe it or not. After the war, I even thought about it, thought maybe I could fit it in with the Watcher gig, but Mama Dawson's little boy had another dream. Right now, the dream is looking more like a nightmare, and I don't need to be an accountant to work out that _Le Blues Bar_ is only barely holding its head above water. In fact, to be blunt, without my salary, this place wouldn't keep running at all – sure, _Joe's_ back in Seacouver is doing okay after a few rocky years, but there's no cream to help the Paris joint at all. My partner – an ex-Watcher pal – over in the States keeps it in the black but by the thinnest of margins. If this place is going to work, I need to get some good acts in, fast. The trouble is, good acts cost. 

I've been at this for a couple of hours, and I'm getting crabby, so when there's a light knock on the door, I don't hold back. "What?" I bark. 

"I can come back if you're busy," my visitor says politely, but I'm already scrambling to my feet. I'd known they were due in any day now, but I hadn't been expecting them so late. 

"Methos! Goddamn! Come in, come in," I say, waving him into the room. He barely gets his body inside the door before I pull him into a hug. I can feel the extra weight on him, see that his skin is plump and full and alive, not like the shattered wreck Amanda and I had collected from a Slovak airport two years ago. It's been too long, much too long. "Damn it, Methos," I whisper, two years' worth of worry and fear and anger at the silence coming out in three little words. It seems like a miracle that he ever got back from that hell hole, let alone is here, safe and well and apparently in the rudest of health. 

A quiet "I'm sorry," is the only answer I get and all that I need. The pain is gone as if it had never been. I give Methos one last squeeze and set him free. I smile at MacLeod who's grinning at the picture in front of him. "Mac, how the hell are you?" I say, taking his outstretched hand and shaking it. 

"I'm good, Joe. You?" 

"You know me, couldn't beat me down with a bat. You'll have a drink?" 

Methos flings himself into the old leather sofa. "You need to ask? It _has_ been too long," his tone unexpectedly acid, and a little curt. I look over at Mac, who lifts an eyebrow at the display of bad temper. 

"Ignore him, it's been a trying day." 

Over Methos' head, Mac gives me a warning look, so I don't pursue Methos' attitude. Instead, I ask casually, "Problems with the flight?" I've already got the whiskey out of my desk and the shot glasses I keep for friends, and I hand Mac his drink. 

"Yeah, it was delayed and you wouldn't believe the people they let into first class these days." 

"I see what you mean," I say, with a little smirk at Methos, who smiles as he accepts the glass from me, but doesn't comment. Maybe there's a hint of an apology in the way he salutes me with his drink before taking a sip. He stretches out some more. Mac doesn't sit, but leans on the edge of my desk, same as me, as he tells me about the flight and some obnoxious guy they'd been forced to put up with on the flight from Glasgow. He keeps giving Methos these little glances, which the old man ignores. I know the two of them are lovers now. Methos told me when he finally got in touch with me by phone, but Mac had already told me a couple of months earlier. But the looks Mac is giving him aren't those of a lover, they're those of a worried friend, and I have to wonder what I'm not being told. Hell, I've got two years worth of stuff to pry out of one, and a year's worth out of the other. They're gonna be here a while, Mac says. I've got time. 

They both look good, but they're also tired, more than the long day would explain. Methos, now I take the time to examine him, looks as if he's had a couple of sleepless nights, which might explain Mac's concern. They've come straight from Charles de Gaulle to the bar – their bags are forming a fire escape route hazard in my doorway – and that could explain at least some of Methos' crabbiness. He's put the weight back, which still leaves him looking underfed, but normal underfed. Mac looks his usual male model self – he's letting his hair grow again, something that I'm happy to see. Somehow, a short-haired Highlander just seems wrong. But Methos is definitely tense underneath the careful casualness and I'm not surprised when Mac stops talking, his body language indicating imminent departure. He has to call Methos a couple of times before getting his attention – he was in a world of his own – but then he seems a little reluctant to leave. How much of that is just politeness, I'm not sure. "I'll let you guys get on back to the barge," I say. "I hooked up the utilities for you, Mac, and there's a few basics in the fridge I put there yesterday. I wasn't sure what else you wanted." 

Mac looks pleased and surprised – he hadn't asked me to do that, but I figure it's a nice way to say 'welcome back'. "Thanks, Joe. That's kind. I'd kinda forgotten about all that." 

That's just not like him, I know. I'm guessing the last mad preparations to come back to Paris had been a lot more hectic than Mac had expected. I wave away his thanks. "It's nothing. But hey, you two are coming to dinner tomorrow. You owe me that, at least." 

"At least as much as that, Joe," Methos says, grinning, before yawning. "Sorry – I'm not used to these late nights any more." It's nearly eleven, but that's early by MacLeod standards. It used to be, anyway. 

"Oh? And here I was thinking you probably didn't sleep much these nights." 

I don't really know what possessed me to say that and it goes down like a lead balloon. Methos looks away and Mac just looks uncomfortable. What did I say? I try to cover the awkwardness over. "So, you need me to call a cab or anything?" 

Mac rouses himself. "No, we'll hail one. Shouldn't be a problem. I'll call you tomorrow, Joe, and we will be here for dinner, right, Methos?" 

"Certainly, MacLeod. You know I leave the social calendar to you." Now that's a strange thing for the old man to say. The two of them – something isn't entirely right but damned if I can work it out. There's no antagonism, but still.... I need time to observe them in their natural habitat, I guess. As I stand at the door of the club, and watch them climb into a taxi, I wonder just how much damage Methos is still carrying from that prick Lazlo's fun and games and just what that means for the future of one of the most unlikely relationships I've ever encountered. 

* * *

I find myself more than a little annoyed at Mac's decision to leave Joe after a bare twenty minutes, but as I'm unsettled and irritable generally, I know better than to express my feelings and cause an unnecessary argument. It's not his fault, after all, that there had been a distressing scene at Glasgow when we were preparing to depart for Paris, just as the flight delay and the truly aggravating passengers were not either. It's certainly less disquieting to think about ways I could have killed and disposed of the odiferous, loudmouthed man who'd shared first class with us (on an upgrade too, I'm more than certain about that), than to recall Shona's teary, worried face, but without wishing it, I do so as the cab takes us towards the Seine. 

In a way, I can hardly blame her for her not wanting me to go. I _had_ been in a terrible state when I first arrived at her home with Jane, further proving to Shona that the world outside Glenfinnan is a mysterious, dirty and dangerous place. 

It'd been unnerving, nonetheless. I'd been expecting a tantrum, had even been ready to deal with hysterics, but I'd been completely unmanned by her solemn, quiet pleas for us not to leave, silent tears trickling down her cheeks. It wasn't even that she had asked me to stay for her own sake – that I could have argued with, persuaded her that she had so many other things to occupy herself with. No, my little friend was worried about _me_ – she had an unshakeable premonition that I would come to harm once I left her sight, and nothing I or Mac or Cassandra said or did could change her mind or lessen her anxiety. 

It didn't help that I had been having second thoughts about leaving Scotland ever since I rashly announced I wanted to do so, and only raw pride and not wanting to look a complete fool in front of Mac allowed me to refuse her earnest begging. Like the mature young person she is, though, Shona accepted my decision. She'd nodded gravely when it was finally clear that I wasn't going to be swayed, let me kiss her hand, given me a last hug and then watched me with sad eyes, holding onto her mother, as she watched us go through the security barrier at Glasgow. 

Her pleas, the delay, my own incessant doubts were all tiring. I'm exhausted, not just from the short trip but from weeks of worry and sleeping badly which has produced a stress headache that seems to have taken up residence permanently in my head and shoulders. The familiar lines of the barge do a little to cheer me up, and as Mac pays the cabbie, I look at the place where I've spent so many happy, if slightly frustrating, evenings with Mac. Not even at my most cheerful and optimistic would I have ever predicted that one day I would be walking up the gangplank of the familiar barge as the lover of the splendid man leading the way onto the boat, some of our shared luggage in his brawny hands. 

"Adam?" For the second time in an hour my attention is requested. "Are you okay? You're bloody distracted." 

He doesn't sound impatient, but I'm annoyed with myself. "I'm fine. Come on, let's get it opened up." 

Once inside, I blink a couple of times to reassure myself there's nothing wrong with my sight. "MacLeod, what the _hell_ have you done to your boat?" The place is utterly denuded. A bed still rests at one end of the long interior – but where are Mac's books? His treasured sculptures? The wine rack? I drop my bags and turn to stare at my lover accusingly. "How do you propose we live like this?" 

He gives me a sheepish look before moving the luggage over to the wall, as if offended that they've broken up the desolate plain that is his Parisian home. "Uh, I should have mentioned this I guess. I put stuff into storage – I need to get it out." 

"Well, that's just fine, Highlander, but in the meantime, this little piggy is moving to a hotel. I gave up eating on the floor in the eleventh century." I just can't imagine how anyone who isn't into self-flagellation big time could live like this. 

"Methos, it'll only take a day or two to get the furniture and in the meantime, there's always the bed," he wheedles, smirking in a suggestive fashion that is at once arousing and irritating. I'm sufficiently off-balance from the events of the last twenty-four hours to let my annoyance win. 

"Strange as this is going to sound, MacLeod, the prospect of hiding in a bed for days until you manage to turn this back into a place fit to house two adults is surprisingly unappealing. I'm serious – I'm moving to the hotel Jeanne d'Arc. You can join me if you like but I'm not staying in this pitiful excuse for a home until it resembles one." 

I make a grab for the bag which holds most of my stuff but he grips it. Now we look like complete idiots in a childish tug of war. "Wait, Methos, please don't go like this. Wait for me." The tone of his voice holds an odd note, enough to make me stop and really look at him. "I'm sorry, I'll come with you. Just wait." 

I soften my tone. "Mac, it's okay, I can manage a couple of nights...." 

"Not on your own, Methos," he says firmly. "Please, I'll just be five minutes...." 

I let go of the bag. "What's going on, Mac?" 

He has already got his cellphone out and his filofax in his other hand, presumably ready to call a cab, but he looks up at my sharp question. "Nothing, I just want to be with you." 

I take the phone and book from him, and lay them on the counter, the only raised surface other than the bed that I can see in the entire room. "Mac – I've just been childish, rude and egotistical. Instead of kicking my arse with complete justification, you are leaping to accommodate me. What aren't you telling me?" 

He picks up his phone and puts it back in his coat. "I'd just be happier knowing you weren't alone." 

Now he's worrying me, his slight frown and total absence of any irritation shouting his anxiety. "Why? If I'm prepared to face my demons, why should you worry? Do you know something I don't? About Lazlo, maybe?" My stomach churns suddenly at the idea of a fresh threat from that dead psychopath. "Tell me, dammit!" 

He holds me by my shoulders. "Calm down, calm down. There's nothing that I know of – I wouldn't have let you come back if I thought there was the slightest possibility of any danger from that direction." 

I notice the careful wording from my normally honest lover. "But you suspect something else. Duncan, you're only making me nervous. Just tell me." 

The grip on my shoulders loosens slightly. "It's nothing – nothing specific – only, what Shona said is more or less what Cassandra said to me two days ago." 

I frown at him. "She's worried?" 

"I wasn't going to say anything, but with the child also apparently having a premonition along the same lines, I have to wonder...." 

My blood chills at what he's said, but I refuse to give myself over to such irrationality. "That's ridiculous and you bloody know it. Shona's just upset about us leaving and so is Cassandra. You forget she's even more fucked up than I am," I say, more than a little unkindly. He shoots me a look which make his disgust at the remark clear but I persist. "Well, it's true, Mac. She's had you around for a good few months and got to like it. Now she'll have to cope with all that we went through on her own – no wonder she's worried." 

"Maybe. But I'd still be grateful if you'd let me come with you to the hotel – for my sake, not yours." 

Goddamn, MacLeod knows perfectly well the effect his eyes have on me and is using them shamelessly. I sigh in a put- upon way. "No, I'll stay. But you could have told me all this in Scotland." 

"I wouldn't have mentioned it at all," he says apologetically. "Shona just rattled me." He slips his arm around my waist, and strokes my cheek. "And you too, admit it." 

I lean into his hand. "Yes, I admit it. I don't give it any credence, but she believed it and I wish she didn't." I close my eyes and let Mac's scent surround me. "It doesn't sound right in here anymore." 

"I'm sorry," Mac whispers, holding me closer. "I should have organised things sooner, but...." 

"...you thought I was going to change my mind?" 

He nods. "And if we're being honest, there was a certain amount of hope in that too." 

Well, that's not really a surprise either, if _I'm_ honest. "You pick your moments, Highlander, you really do," I say and sigh again. I'm really too tired and in too much pain for this. "Come on, let's get this barn set up. At least tell me we don't have to eat moss and lichen." 

"No, I was going to order food in." 

"Then do it and then take me to bed. I'm tired and grumpy and in need of the Scottish cure." 

"Aye, that you do, mon," he says in an atrocious parody of his native accent. "Why don't you go clean up – the bathroom is still in a fit state for your noble self." 

I snort at that crack and set myself free. I pick up my bag and take it over to the sleeping platform before extracting some clean clothes. I pat the bed. "At least I get to try you out finally," I mutter _sotto voce_ , and hear a muffled laugh from the other end of the room. 

I feel much, much better after a long shower, and the welcome smell of food greets me. I sigh internally as I realise that we really are going to eat on the floor after all, but at least that's entirely appropriate for Chinese food. After nearly two years of eating good honest Scottish cooking, the idea of something more exotic is surprisingly enticing, and Mac only orders the best. On cue, my stomach rumbles, and he laughs. "Aw, poor baby's hungry." 

Because it's expected of me, I give him the filthy look I always do when he indulges his thankfully rare urges to talk rot, then sink to the floor and grab a dish to begin piling noodles into my bowl. I like spicy food, but plain fare like noodles with a little soy sauce speaks to my younger self and tastes in a curiously satisfying way. I guess it's why I like oatcakes and pasta and rice so much. Carbohydrates are comforting to me. He knows it too. 

I lean against my lover as I eat. The meal, generous though it is, is consumed by two hungry men in contented silence and soon finished. He allows me to continue to use him as a support as I drink my wine slowly. I'm now replete and a lot less tense. He moves his arm so it's around me, and strokes my hair. "Even Cassandra didn't believe her own premonition, you know," he says softly. 

It has the entirely opposite effect to his intention, and I wriggle out of his grip. "Of course not. I don't want to talk about this." 

He frowns at me. "You want to go to bed?" 

"Why, you want to prove Dawson wrong?" I say snidely, and immediately regret it. "I'm sorry...." 

He heaves a great sigh and pulls me close. "Don't, Methos. I know you're cranky and unsettled and this is all a big step, but I'm not your enemy. Neither is Joe. He really missed you." 

I submit, melting into him. "I know, I know, and I know I'm being an utter pig. It's not his fault that everyone assumes new lovers must go at it like goats." 

"I'm no a goat," he clowns, his horrible mock accent coming to the fore again. "I dunno about you." 

I'm being managed and it's annoying, even if I relish the love behind it. I get to my feet and pull him up with me. "Bed is good. Don't count on sex." 

He traps my face and peers at me earnestly. "Methos, I am completely happy with our love life." 

"What bloody love life?" I say bitterly, and quite unfairly as I well know. 

He drops his hands in exasperation. "You are such a perverse old bugger, you know that?" 

"Better than being a pervert." 

"You'd know." 

I grin at that. I'm being managed again and this time, fighting it is too much like hard work. "I don't suppose you could see your way to giving me a back rub?" I ask, utterly shameless in appealing to the Highlander's love of pampering others, but sorely in need of the physical comfort. 

He slings his arm around my shoulders and urges me towards the bed. "Got a headache again?" 

"Mmmm." He had caught me taking aspirin a couple of weeks ago, and such unusual behaviour in an Immortal needed to be explained. Now I only resort to analgesics when it's inappropriate or inconvenient for a massage, neither of which applies now. I stand passively by the bed and let Mac strip me. The reverent way he always does this, like he's unwrapping a valuable present, never fails to give me a small burst of warmth in my chest. 

He lowers me to the bed and stretches over me, something else that I adore. I've not been able to quite work out why, since the heaviness of a male body over me should bring back flashbacks not just from Lazlo, but from... well, from Kronos, to be blunt – God alone knows, everything else seems to – but all it does is to make me feel secure and loved. I'm still at the stage of finding just being with Mac a constant source of surprise and wonder, as well as being constantly anxious when it will all, finally, fall apart. It's another cause of stress, but damned if I'll let him go for that reason. 

He taps my cheek. "You really are in another place tonight, aren't you?" 

I smile at him, embarrassed by the lapse. "Can I help it if I multitask?" 

"Focus on me, Methos. Let it all go and be with me." His voice has got low and gravelly and my Pavlovian response kicks in. He ignores the erection he must surely feel against his stomach, and concentrates on stroking my hair and licking my neck. 

"Mac, back rub?" I remind him. I don't actually want him to stop what he's doing, but I always begin to worry round about this point in the proceedings that he will want more than I can offer, and even though that hasn't happened, I hate even the prospect of losing control again. The rare times it happened were scarring and not something I ever want to repeat. I couldn't believe he would stick around after another episode like the one at New Year. Most of the time I can't really fathom why he sticks around at all. 

He gets off me, fetches the massage oil then strips quickly and efficiently, his clothes joining mine in a tidy pile on the floor. I roll over, pillowing my head on my arms and feel him settle across my legs. I can feel he's semi-hard, and that he's carefully not allowing his cock to touch any part of my buttocks. I almost want to scream 'just take me!' but even the thought leaves my stomach in a knot. It's just much too soon. It might take years before I can allow myself to be penetrated and once again I curse the dead bastard and the dead bastard's dead minion who've done this to me. Until I can allow Mac to take me that way, I can't be sure he's truly satisfied with our love life, no matter what he says. When had this act taken on so much significance? It surely was at the moment the ability was ruthlessly torn from me, when the choice was no longer there. I'm in mourning for the loss of control over my body and feelings. 

I feel his strong, beloved hands, softened with the oil, land carefully on my shoulders and my body immediately responds by going limp. In former times, submission saved me from a beating, or a worse beating than I'd got, but with him, his hands signal rest and an easing of pain. Even in those first few light strokes across my skin, the agony in my head begins to lessen. If I could purr, I know I would be. It's usual for him to massage me silently until I fall asleep, and I'm already feeling pleasantly drowsy when I hear a question. "Huh?" I say intelligently. 

"I said, you should know what the bed feels like, it's the one I had when you owned the barge that week." 

"I never slept in it," I mumble. _Leave it be_ , _MacLeod_ , I say in my head. 

"Why not? It was your boat, I seem to remember you telling me." 

I feel a flush rising in my cheeks, and I'm glad he can't see my embarrassment. "I was used to the couch, so I slept there." 

"Uh huh," he says skeptically, although his hands keep up their deep, slow movements. 

"I thought about jerking off all over your sheets, but then I thought you would kill me, or Amanda would... and I...." 

His hands still briefly, then resume the massage. "You...?" 

"Mac, you know when that was. I didn't want to piss you off. I... I couldn't afford to lose someone else." _Oh, how utterly pathetic, Methos_. 

His hands stop again, and I feel his weight shift before a gentle kiss is placed between my shoulder blades. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to remind you of that." 

"S'okay. My headache's gone, thank you," 

He slides over and lies alongside me, looking into my eyes with his soft brown ones. "Guess you found another way to end up with the barge?" 

I have to smile. He had insisted on transferring the title of the croft in Glenfinnan, which he'd decided to buy after all, and half-title in the barge to me, and had offered to do the same for his Seacouver island but I'd refused this extravagant gesture as a step too far for our young relationship. "I'd much rather have the pilot than the ship, you know that." I draw closer to him, and he puts his arm over me. It was a very comfortable bed, I have to admit. Nothing but the best for the Highlander, I think hazily, tugged towards a deep and dreamless sleep by the warmth of my companion and the gentle rocking of the barge on the Seine. 

* * *

I'm surprised to see MacLeod stride into the bar a bare ten minutes after opening. "Where's his lordship?" I ask. 

"At the Bibliotheque Nationale __, relearning where his brain is – that's a quote, I might add."

I have to grin. "Yeah, I recognised the style. Coffee?" 

"Sure, and something in it, if you don't mind." 

I put the coffee maker on, and don't show how surprised I am at the little extra requested. "Little early for you, ain't it?" 

Mac waits until I turn around to answer. "Give me a break, Dawson, I've been up since the crack of dawn organising things so the barge can be suitable, and I quote, 'for a person of discretion and refinement who can make your life a living hell for centuries if he has to eat off the floor one more time.'" 

I laugh at that and Mac grins. "Throwing his weight around already? Do you think you can handle this?" 

"The rewards are worth it, believe me." 

The coffee will be a few minutes, and the silence stretches until I have to break it. "So, how is he, really?" 

I'm not sure Mac will answer, but he makes an equivocating motion with his hand. "Incredibly good in most ways." 

"And in others?" 

Something shifts in his expression – is it regret? "He's come a long way, Joe. I can't break his confidences, not even with you. But he might – might – tell you if you ask." 

I doubt it somehow, although Methos probably opened up to me more than Mac before all of this shit went down. When he'd finally called me just after New Year, Methos tried to explain the long silence he'd maintained and it seemed to boil down to the his shattered self-image. Because me and Amanda had seen the state he was in when he escaped, he just couldn't bear us looking at him in pity. Cassandra was different – she'd been there all the time. 

It wasn't logical and it didn't make much sense, unless you'd been there. Hell, I'd known enough vets who'd suffered nightmares and worse more than thirty years after the Vietnam war. I know how I feel about strangers seeing me in my chair, without my legs, and he'd been through worse than what I had, even if he was able-bodied at the end of it all. Maybe I'd just thought Methos might have bounced back quicker, given his age and experience. But when I say as much to Mac, he scowls. "Do you have _any_ idea what happened to them there?" 

"Some." Cassandra had said a little, Methos not much at all. Amanda and me worked most of the rest out for ourselves from the way they acted towards us and to each other, and by the way they looked. It takes a lot for Immortals to look like they're dying of cancer. They'd both looked terminal. 

"Some," Mac repeats heavily. He walks away from the bar, apparently too agitated to stay still, then he turns and looks at me – he's not angry so much as frustrated. "I've seen a lot of things, Joe, heard worse, and God knows, Methos is no saint – but how could one human do that to another? What reason could he possibly have had?" 

"This isn't a rhetorical question?" He shakes his head. "Methos, Cassandra, said it was revenge for Kronos." 

"Oh, bullshit, Joe!" he explodes. I get the feeling this is a conversation he hasn't had with Methos but desperately needs to. "Someone who could do all that, glory in it, be so calculating over it – that's not someone who would 'grieve' over a bastard like Kronos. Revenge, maybe, might be part of it, but I just don't think it was the whole story." 

"Does it matter? The guy's dead." 

"And Methos is still damaged as hell, Joe. They both are. I just think – if there was a reason – they might be able to, I don't know, assimilate it better." 

"And you too?" 

Mac stares at me, and then nods. "Yes, maybe. The Watchers got to that hideout before the police, didn't they? Was there anything in Lazlo's papers that explains things?" 

I shake my head. "I don't know, Mac. He was an Immortal we didn't know about, so his file is handled in a different department. The guy who had Kronos was assigned to it, I think. I could ask him – if it's really important?" 

He knows as well as I do the risk I'm offering to take, but even so, he nods. "It is, Joe. Not enough to put you in danger, but important, yes. I want to get to the bottom of this." 

If Mac needs it this bad – if Methos needs it – I can do it. "Okay. For him, okay? But it'll take a while – the Watcher dealing with it is in Russia just now and I can't look through the files directly. But I'll do it." 

The coffee maker has finally stopped dripping and I pour our coffees, adding a slug of whiskey to Mac's and pushing it across the bar. He draws close again and takes a sip from the cup. "Thanks, Joe – for this and the other thing." He gets up onto a stool and looks set for the sort of talk I've been itching to have for months past. I switch into Watcher mode and settle in for a nice, long chat with my Immortal. 

* * *

I'm frowning so hard at the strangled Latin text I'm reading that I only notice the Presence when it's well past the point when I should have done. I look around in panic, my hand instinctively reaching inside my coat, when I see Mac making his way around the tables. He sits down. "Profitable day?" He looks like he needs a break. 

"Not exactly. Bloody monks." 

"Watch it." He smiles and my heart lifts. 

"Hey, I know whereof I speak, okay? Do we have a home now?" 

Mac's grin broadens. "Not quite but by tomorrow we will. We've been stood up for this evening – Joe's barman is ill, and he had to take a rain check on dinner. But he's hoping to make it later this week." 

I'm not entirely sorry. "Doesn't matter. It's a nice evening, fancy a walk in the park __?"

"If you like. Are you sure?" 

"You have to ask? Mac, you've had me in training for months to deal with the real world." 

He quirks an eyebrow at me cheekily. "Yeah, but is the real world ready for you, I have to ask." 

"Remember I know where you live, Highlander." Sometimes we sound as if nothing has changed in our friendship. How little truth there is in that. 

He stands, as I do, collecting my notes and laptop. I'm more than happy to stop. It's been a while since I've spent so long in a library and it's taken more energy than I'd expected. A walk and a quiet meal with MacLeod is just what I need. 

It really is a lovely evening – a bright, warm spring is giving its magic to Paris and while no real substitute for the lush space of the Highlands, it makes the transition easier to bear. I still don't like the traffic or the press of other people on the footpaths. 

Mac has, through patient kindness, brought my almost frantic paranoia about being in the company of strangers down to normal levels for an Immortal, which is still damn paranoid by mortal standards, but something I've long since got used to. The garden is wreathed in hazy, warm late afternoon sunshine, and the paths are clogged with dog walkers and joggers, which is irritating but manageable. The grassed areas are largely empty except around the edges, so we can walk in peace. I let free a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding tight. Mac raises a casual hand to my shoulder – he's noticed the tension. "You okay?" 

I shrug my shoulder irritably. "Would you stop asking me that, Mac? I'm not sick." 

His hand drops. "Sorry." 

"I'm okay. Really." 

He smiles knowingly. "Really? So why are you squinting?" 

"The sun's too bright." 

"Bullshit. You have another headache." 

"Leave it," I growl, now really annoyed. I stride on a little, but then I become aware that I'm not being followed and turn. Mac is staring off in the middle distance, and then begins to walk away from me. "Mac?" I ask, knowing that he can't be annoyed enough with me to leave. He begins to run. "Fuck it!" I curse, running after him. But just as abruptly, he stands stock still, staring off into the distance. "MacLeod, what the hell...?" I say angrily, nearly running up the back of him. 

"Tessa," he whispers. 

"Tessa. As in Tessa Noel?" I ask, incredulous, my anger gone in an instant, my heart in my throat. I put my hand on his arm, but he resists my effort to turn him, so I walk in front of him. "Mac, you know it can't be," I say gently, knowing that now is not the time to be harsh over his strangeness. 

At last his brown eyes swivel my way, even though he is still facing after his apparition. "I was sure... the way she walked, her hair...." 

"She's dead, Duncan. It was just a coincidence." 

He seems dazed, but finally he lets himself be led by the arm over to one of the chairs on the edge of the pond. "It happened before," he says hoarsely. "But it was a trick. I thought... I thought...." 

I rub his arm, wishing we weren't in public so I could hold him properly. After the mind games of Ahriman, this unfortunate sighting is bound to have a greater impact than it might have done before. "Just a look-alike, Mac. It happens. Paris is a big place," I add meaninglessly. 

He shakes himself and smiles with an obvious effort. "I thought I was taking you to have coffee." 

"Never mind, Duncan...." 

But he's already looking at his watch. "We could have an early supper instead?" 

He's making an attempt to brush over the strange fit, and so I play along. "Sounds good." 

He's very subdued as we walk through the garden, still distracted. I make the executive decision to go for the closest option, the garden's own café. Not my first choice, but he needs a drink, in my expert and medical opinion. 

I push him into a corner booth and get us both glasses of wine, eschewing coffee. I put the glass into his hands, and he looks up as if seeing me for the first time. "Drink," I order, recognising, astonishingly, the first signs of shock. This has knocked him for a loop – why? 

After he's swallowed his wine, I push the other glass toward him, and he takes it without comment. "What did you see?" 

"It was her, Methos. I swear, even the clothes were the same." 

"Mac, it just can't be." 

"Ahriman... offered her to me. If I would... give up. Give in." 

God. I freeze – this is something he's never told me. "I take it you refused." 

"What do you think?" he says in a voice devoid of any colour and which is all the more scary for that. 

"So – why do you think...?" 

"Because this was before I knew, Methos. Before I knew what he could do, the power he had. I'd seen... I knew Sophie Baines had come back... but... I didn't know what I was refusing," he said bitterly. "I mean, I saw Sophie looking at her own body, so I thought... I knew... that she wasn't real... but if she hadn't killed herself.... Methos, Sophie would be alive now. And so could Tessa." His eyes are liquid with pain and grief. 

I speak carefully, respectful of his sorrow. "If you had – if you had got her back, think of the consequences." 

"The world looks so wonderful to you now?" he says bitterly. "I did such a great job? Oh, yeah, Methos, the price was worth all this." 

Looking at it from his point of view, I suppose he has the right of it, but it chills me to think Mac is regretting saving the world from evil. An evil that had cost him Richie Ryan and many others their lives, which brought him to the very edge of insanity. 

"It couldn't have been her," is all I can say. I really don't believe it's possible. Not now, anyway. He doesn't answer. He seems genuinely spooked by the whole business. I wonder what he would have done if I had not been there – would he have really hunted the mystery woman down? 

Probably would've got himself arrested, I think sourly. That would be all we need. 

Neither of us is in the mood to prolong the outing, and we walk back to the barge. None of the furniture has come back, but I hardly expected it would have done. There's paperwork on the counter, and he's been shopping for food, but the place still looks like a _salle,_ not a place to live in. 

I put an arm around him. "Why don't you let me give you a back rub?" 

The first smile in hours creeps hesitantly across his face. "I'd promised myself that I would give you another one tonight." 

I kiss his cheek and take his hand. "I think," I say quietly, "you need it more than I do. Please?" 

He lets me lead him over to the bed, and strip him quickly out of his clothes. He's still subdued, but there's no mistaking the look in his eyes tonight. I realise with a sinking heart that the desire there, however restrained, will not be assuaged by a mere back rub, and that the grief the afternoon's events have caused needs more loving – more forgetting – than a hug can convey. Not that Mac would _ever_ force me, but the need is there nonetheless. 

Perhaps it's time that I gather up my courage and try to push past the barriers in my mind. It is, after all, a physical act I've performed many times and enjoyed. Ferenc Lazlo should no longer come between us and loving pleasure. 

"Mac... I want you to take me," I say before I can change my mind, proud that my voice doesn't shake. 

His eyes widen in shock, and then narrow a little, assessing me. "No, Methos." 

_What?_ "But, Duncan...." 

"No. I know why you're offering." He reaches out and draws me to him, makes me rest my head on his shoulders in a gesture that is both comforting and a little irritating. "What I really need is for you to take _me_ " 

God. No. I struggle out of his grip. "No. I told you. No." Not even for him– what happened at New Year burns shamefully in my mind. 

He grabs my hands, insistent. "Wait, wait.... I've been thinking – there's a way...." 

"Mac, no! I... please, don't ask me." I hate myself for the display of weakness. 

"Shhh. Don't get worked up," he says soothingly, and I let myself respond to the soft tones as I have so often, letting the harmonics and the promise of safety carry me over my stupid terror. I let myself be drawn in again until my chest is warm against his firm broad one. "I swear, Methos, there's no way you can hurt me. You won't even be able to try." 

"How?" But as he takes me by the hand and pushes me carefully down onto the bed, I understand. If I hadn't been so resistant to even considering the act, I would have thought of this myself. He's hard already, his cock jutting up between us as he sits astride my legs. I'm limp as a eunuch, but my body responds a little to the oiled touch of his strong hands on me, at first on my chest and then on my belly, skirting lower and lower towards my genitals. "Looks like you win the massage war," I grumble in a joking way, but inside, my stomach is churning from nerves.

He grins. "I _always_ win," he says, and my cock twitches at the testosterone-laden boast. 

I go with the winner. But what did I ever do to win you? I let my mind drift again, too distracted by memories. I distantly feel my sex harden under his clever, knowing hands, but my mind is in the past, remembering glimpses of Duncan MacLeod – the winner, the warrior, the lover of so many. Even the tamed twentieth-century version of the Highlander is a primal force I have ever been helpless to resist – not that I ever even tried to resist. All my will had gone instead to concealing how I felt. Such a waste of time, I think, sighing. A rough, warm hand cups my cheek and I look up. 

"Where did you go?" he asks gently, leaning over me, concern in his dark eyes. 

I reach up my hand to cover that of my lover's. "Somewhere nice. Somewhere that might have been nicer." 

"Stay with me?" he says, pinning me with the warmth of his gaze. "Be here with me." 

"Yes," I whisper. Stay here, don't get lost again. "Mac, I wish you would just ...." His finger touches my lips, and I fall silent. 

"Trust me." 

"Always." 

He smiles, like the sun emerging from storm clouds, and I feel my heart stutter in my chest at having the power to make him so happy. God, if it goes wrong.... But then my thoughts are hijacked by the sight of Mac preparing himself with the same strong, callused fingers that have just been stroking my cock, and I reach out to touch his chest, my hand over the steadily beating heart. "Mac, oh God... if I could freeze you in time like that...." 

He laughs. "Just wait, old man, I promise you'll want me to move in a minute or two." He's done slicking himself, and wipes his hand on a tissue. I hold my breath as he positions himself over my cock, holding the rigid flesh in place. "You should see your eyes – they're huge, like a kid in a sweet shop," he says, laughing again. 

I growl in annoyance at being mocked, but he's right – short of actually moving away from under him, I can do nothing in this position but let him take control. "God!" I shout as my cock is encased in the slippery tight heat of his body. I reach out blindly, only for my hands to be caught in his. He grips me tightly with his hands and his body, his powerful thighs levering himself up and down my length, his face a mask of concentration. It's almost too much for me and I have to bite back a cry of near pain at the intensity of the sensation. It's been so bloody long.... "Mac!" I yell as he moves and makes the sensation even more powerful. 

"Am I hurting you?" he asks, slowing his movements. 

"No...no...I...." Suddenly thoughts begin to swirl, I'm losing it again, unwanted memories, pain, flooding back. "I can't.... I can't...." 

"Methos, look at me – look at my face." I obey – I have no choice. "Stay with me. Here." He brings my right hand, still entrapped in his own, down onto his erection. "Stroke me, bring me with you." 

It is what I need, to take a little control, and feeling the girth and the smoothness of his cock is enough to center me again, to remind me this is _now_ , that I am safe. I give myself to the sensations as he begins the achingly slow movement up and down my length. I'll never bitch about his katas again, I tell myself, as I see the muscles in the long thighs bunch, his stomach rippling as he rides me. I feel like throwing my head back and baying at the moon at the sight. 

No chance of losing my way again. I am pure sensation, pure pleasure, surrounded by the noises and the scents and the feel of my lover, my body's reaction welling up like an unstoppable wave. The pressure builds up at the base of my spine and the pit of my belly, and my climax is drawn mercilessly from me by Mac's tight, knowing embrace. I can't hold back my scream of ecstasy, a pure eruption of relief from the pain of repressed desires, but I retain enough control to keep it down – even so, I open my eyes to see him staring at me in alarm. "Um, did I forget to tell you I'm a little noisy?" I say sheepishly. 

Relieved, he grins. "Yeah, I think you did ... oh Jesus," he says with feeling, as I take his erection in hand. He'd been silent as he'd driven me to the edge, but now he lets go, moaning and pleading as I tease an extravagant orgasm from him. I can feel the ripples of his climax through my cock still inside him and I groan as the aftershocks titillate my sensitive sex. "Are you okay?" he asks, panting hard. 

I tug him forward with our clasped hands. "I'm fine. I'm just fine," I say before capturing his mouth and trying to show him with my kiss the depth of my love and gratitude for his breaking the curse on me so thoroughly. 

He's heavy on top of me, but I welcome his weight, the smell of manly sweat and semen and passion. He shifts a little and then I let him up, knowing that we need to clean up before we sleep. But he doesn't get off the bed – instead he just moves beside me and pulls me close. "Mac? Don't we need to wash?" 

"Nope, don't want to move. Want to hold you." He tilts my head toward him. "Thank you for letting me do that." 

"You're thanking _me_?" I ask, astonished. 

He chuckles, a rumbling deep in his broad chest. "Yes, I'm thanking you for trusting me. I'm thanking you for your perfect cock, and for some beautiful lovemaking. I'm thanking you for the left side of the bed...." 

I raise my hand in surrender. He isn't in a frivolous mood often, but it tends to be unstoppable when he is. "I get the picture. And you're welcome. For all of it." 

I rest my head on his chest, which is how we both prefer to sleep and he wraps his arms around me. I'm almost drifting off before I remember what happened earlier, and then I smile. He has surely been lifted out of his strange mood. All it took was mind-blowing sex. Easy, really. It's all incredibly easy. 

* * *

The sun is pouring in through the portholes when I wake, alone. I can hear Mac humming to himself over by the small kitchen bar, and I can smell coffee, thank God. When did the coffee maker come back? Peeking over the covers, I realise there is someone else on the barge, and I groan. "'Morning, Joe," I say and pull the duvet back over my head. He was leaning against the fireplace but now as I hide, I feel his weight settle at the end of the bed. "Joe, I'm naked under here." 

"Hell, Methos, you think Immortal bits are different?" Joe says, more amusement in his tone than I find acceptable at this hour of the morning. 

I refuse to rise to that, and I have no intention of exposing myself to his gaze, however tolerant or good-humoured. I feel a dull anger rising in my chest that MacLeod could allow him onto the barge, knowing my feelings. Just because we had successful sex last night doesn't mean that I'm happy to walk around nude in front of other people this morning. 

A hand grips my shoulder. "Bugger off, Dawson," I growl, holding onto the covers harder. 

"It's me, Methos. Here." A balled up bunch of cloth is thrust in at my face, and I realise Mac has given me boxers and a t-shirt. At the same time, I feel Joe's weight come off the bed, and hear the slow stump stump as he crosses the floor to the other end of the barge. So Mac hadn't forgotten after all, and my anger dissolves, leaving me feeling foolish and grateful at the same time. I struggle into my clothes under the covers and then peer up over the edge of them. Mac is standing there, looking at me. "I'm sorry, Methos, but it's bad news." 

I shoot upright, my heart thumping. "Who? Shona? Cassandra?" 

His hand settles on my shoulder again, preventing me leaping out of bed. "No, no, not that sort of news. Calm down." His thumb massages my shoulder muscle and he waits a moment or two before continuing, an apology for the shock he's given me clear on his face. "Joe came round to let me know about the dojo. There's been a fire." 

"Shit. Is it bad?" I gesture to the pile of clothes on the floor, and silently Mac hands me my jeans. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and pull my pants on. 

"Pretty bad," Joe answers. He walks over to the bed again and sits down. "Actually...." 

"It's all gone," Mac finishes for him. 

"Shit," I say again for want of a more suitable sentiment. "I'm sorry, Mac. I know you wanted to hang on to it." 

He shrugs. "Nothing I can do about it now. But the point is, I'll need to fly to the States and sort it out sometime in the next week or so. It's sooner than we planned, but do you want to come with me?" 

I consider the idea as I go over to the kitchen bar in search of coffee, and to grab one of the pastries that Mac – or possibly Joe – has provided. "Well, I've barely started collecting my data, so I'll be twiddling my thumbs. Do you need me to come with you?" 

Mac frowns at that. "I thought you might want to come with me." 

I glance over at our mortal friend. "Joe will look after me, won't you, Joe?" My attempt at nonchalance isn't terribly good, but Mac relaxes nonetheless. He's got the message. I don't need a sitter, and Joe can provide any emotional backup his psychotic little lover needs. 

"Sure, kid. Mac, I thought you were getting your furniture out of store," Joe complains. I sympathise – if I think eating on the floor hard, Joe will find it impossible. 

"Yes, MacLeod. You're not going anywhere until you do that. We had a deal, remember?" I glare in mock anger at my lover, who bows Japanese style in response. 

"So sorry, master. Will accommodate your wishes immediately, master." 

Joe looks at me and grins. "You've got him trained, I see." 

"Huh, not as well I'd like. So, how about it, Mac? When can we live like civilised people again? I can't believe I gave up Scotland for this dump." 

"I'll not have you insult my lovely boat, Methos, and anyway, it's coming today. Goddammit, anyone would think you'd always lived with chairs and tables." 

I sniff dramatically and join Joe on the bed. "I have come to expect my comforts." Something else strikes me then. "Joe, why did you drag yourself over here? Was it just on the off chance of catching us at it?" I look up at Mac. 

He lifts an eyebrow, clearly displeased at this unsubtle dig, but Joe is unmoved. "Just thought it was polite to bring the bad news over in person – and I was hoping Mac would agree that I didn't need to follow him." 

"And?" I ask. "I assume the answer is 'no, you don't'?" 

Mac answers that one. "I shouldn't be gone more than a couple of weeks – Joe can trust me to keep him informed." 

"And I assume your Watcher will keep _me_ informed," I say tartly, then wonder why I have to be such a bitch. Low blood sugar, I decide – no supper the night before, and the Danish I'm wolfing down has yet to have any effect. I attempt to make amends. "I could help fill in any gaps Joe needs for your Chronicles while you were away?" Joe looks surprised at the offer. "Don't get excited, Dawson, it was very dull. Sheep and rain." 

Another raised eyebrow, Mac no doubt thinking, as I am, that there had been any amount of supreme excitement, none of which will be seen in _any_ Watcher journal. He keeps his counsel though and I maintain an expression of helpful innocence, which probably only fuels Joe's suspicions but gives him nothing to work with. 

Mac's cell goes and he has a brief conversation before hanging up. "That's the storage company's truck – they're on the quay." 

"That's our cue to leave, Joe," I say, standing. "Come on, I'll buy you some real breakfast while MacLeod is reacquainted with his loved ones." 

* * *

Methos takes me over to Maurice's café and ordered us both coffee and me, a croque madame. For himself, he gets a basket of croissants with preserves. I'm slightly unnerved by his attitude this morning, but can't quite put his finger on why. Both he and MacLeod are 'off' in some indefinable way, and it bothers me not to be able to identify it. "Spit it out, Joseph," he finally says. "You're staring at me as if I have snot on my chin." 

"Well, you do," I say, smirking. He doesn't move an inch. "Is everything okay between you and Mac?" I ask, deciding the direct approach might just work. 

It doesn't. "We're fine, Joe," he says in that fake innocent way of his. "Two Immortals not using their swords on each other has always got to be good." 

"You know what I mean, Adam." 

"No, I don't, as a matter of fact," and the atmosphere gets a little cooler. "Joe, as a friend, we told you about our relationship. That doesn't give you a right to pry." 

In other words, 'back off, Dawson'. "Look, if I wanted to pry, I wouldn't be asking you – I'd be using a telephoto lens and hidden mikes, so stop being an asshole!" 

Methos inclines his head as if in acknowledgement. "Touché, but I still don't want to talk about me and Mac. It's not a comfortable or an easy topic." 

"Okay. But how are you? You look great, but you're a little edgy, if you don't mind me saying that. Not happy to be back?" 

Methos sighs, and the tension drops out of his long frame. "Yes and no. I was safe and in a routine in Scotland. Not necessarily good for one, but...." 

"It was what you needed. I know, Adam. Seriously, you okay?" 

At last, a real smile. "Yes. I really am, Joe. Mac has been so very kind to me. Cassandra too." My expression must betray my skepticism."It's true, Joe. I know it sounds strange, but I couldn't have got through without her. She deserves your respect." 

"Okay, I believe you. But it's not all done with, is it? You still have nightmares, right?" 

He smiles ruefully. "I forgot who I was talking to. Yes, nightmares, flashbacks. No blackouts, not any more. And look, Ma, no shakes." He holds out his rock-steady hand. 

"How long before you stopped?" 

"Not until a couple of months ago." 

"You getting headaches?" 

His eyes narrow. "How did you know that?" 

"Hell, Methos, most of us get them. Didn't they teach you anything in Heidelberg?" 

"I skipped PTSD 101, Joe. Yes, I get them. It's just stress, I know that." 

I grin. "Well, they won't kill you, that's for sure." 

"You're such a comfort, Dawson, you really are. Tell me about this fire? Is it arson?" 

I remember who _I'm_ was talking to, and argue briefly with myself about what to hide, before deciding on honesty. "Yeah, looks like. No real attempt to cover it up either. The place was razed to the ground." 

He grimaces. "Any hint of it being one of us?" 

"If it was, we don't know about it. It might have something to do with gang activity in the area – maybe someone thought someone else owned the building. How could it be one of you guys? I mean, why would they?" 

"To get Mac back to the States?" 

"But you only got back yesterday, and I was the only one who knew you were coming." 

He leans back and steeples his hands thoughtfully. "Anyone who was watching you, saw you at the barge arranging power and so forth, would know it must mean MacLeod was coming back to Paris." 

"But why, Adam?" 

"Why was I kidnapped by Ferenc Lazlo?" 

My gut turns to ice as I get what he's saying. "Kronos?" I whisper. "You think...?" 

His eyes are cold, calculating. Measuring up how much he trusts me, how much he can depend on me. "I don't know, but I have to admit that's my first thought." 

"Why get him to the States? Why not take him down here?" 

He shakes his head. "I really don't know, and maybe there is nothing in it, but you'll forgive me if I am a little paranoid." 

Damn! "We left him alone on the barge!" I say, beginning to rise from my chair. He lays a hand on my arm and urges me to sit again. 

"Wait. Panicking is not going to help. Thinking will. If this is a plot to get MacLeod to Seacouver, they won't make a move here. And Mac is frankly more than capable of dealing with intruders than you or me, especially on the barge, and he has workmen there." Despite his calm words, I can detect a minute tremor in his voice, and his long hands are clasped less than casually. How he can just sit there, with the man he claims to love with a possible assassin on his tail, I don't know, but I guess if he's not worried with five thousand years of paranoia behind him, I can sit on my ass a little longer. 

"You two are planning to share the barge?" I ask, since it's clear he's not going to continue – I guess he's thinking. "Won't it get a little cramped?" 

"Worked for Mac and Tessa Noel, didn't it?" 

His casual tone is too forced to be convincing. "Adam, what is it?" 

"It's nothing – nothing important. He thought he saw her yesterday, that's all." 

I stare. "Mac thought he saw Tessa? You're serious?" 

"It had to be a mistake, Joe. I don't believe in ghosts." 

I bite my tongue – that issue is no longer clear-cut for me. "Didn't Mac ever tell you about Horton and Lisa Milon?" 

He frowns. "No, he said Ahriman had offered him Tessa's life – this is something else?" 

He's now leaning forward, and intensely interested in my words. "Yeah, it was. About six months after Tessa was killed, this chick turned up. I mean, she was Tessa to a T, I swear to God. Totally screwed Mac up – he knew she wasn't really Tessa, but you can imagine how he felt...." 

He nods slowly. "Yes, I can. Joe, that's horrible. You said Horton...?" 

"Yeah, he was behind it all, trying to rattle Mac, throw him off balance, you know? Anyway, this Lisa Milon got herself killed too, so it can't be that." 

"And we know Horton is dead." He's looking at me intently. "We _do_ know that, right?" 

"I thought we did, buddy, but after Ahriman... hell, Mac says what I saw was a demon and not my brother-in-law, but all I know is that he looked and talked like James Horton to me. I don't even think his daughter would have been able to tell different." 

He toys with his forgotten breakfast. About us, people move along the sunny pavement – the café is filling up, and all the outside tables are full. It seems surreal to be talking about the dead walking and demons in such a prosaic setting. "Joe, you realise that Mac seeing this look-alike and the dojo fire are likely to be related." 

"But how, Adam? Why the hell would anyone bother?" 

"The Watchers? Horton wasn't the only fanatic." 

"I ain't heard nothing," I say emphatically. "And I would, I know that." 

"How can you be so sure, Joe? You're MacLeod's Watcher. You're known to be his friend. If there is another Horton, they would go to a lot of trouble to keep you out of it." 

I have to accept the truth of this. "If there _is_ another Horton, you realise you're at risk too?" 

Methos winces and signals the waitress for the bill. "The thought had occurred to me. The question is, what do we do about it?" 

"Run?" 

"Don't tempt me. The problem with that is that we've already been tagged. We have to assume we are under surveillance this very moment. Do the Watchers know about Methos?" he asks in a lowered voice. 

I'm glad to say no. "Not through me, pal. Has he taken a head recently?" 

"Not since... not since Bordeaux." 

The ache in his voice is so raw. "Well, then I can be pretty sure they don't know about him." The conversation is still incriminating if anyone _is_ listening with a parabolic microphone, but if our presumed audience doesn't know about Methos and Adam Pierson being one and the same, hopefully they won't learn it from what we've said... but then I remember. "Jesus, the barge. You and Mac...." 

"Yes, I know," Methos says resignedly. "The sounds of barn doors and hoof beats are immensely clear, I assure you." The waitress approaches with the bill, and he throws some franc notes down on the tray before standing up. "We better go and tell the man what we've concluded. And decide what the bloody hell we do about it all." 

* * *

Things are surprisingly advanced at the barge when Joe and I get back, and I realise that Mac is only moving the necessities back in. I'm not sure if that is just him being considerate and allowing me to have the option of imposing my own taste on our shared home – or if it means he doesn't think the shared home is going to be needed for long. I tamp down the paranoid feelings, and school myself to look calm and normal as the moving men dump the last item into the barge's hold, and Mac signs off on the inventory. 

Joe slumps onto the newly provided armchair, and I don't think we have a hope in hell of moving him or the chair before Mac's Watcher decides he's ready to leave. "Surprised to see you back again, Joe," Mac says, putting water on to boil. 

Joe glances at me, and I figure I'm deputised to explain. "Mac, we might have a problem." 

He listens in silence to our deductions. "Adam, you should come with me to the States," he says finally. 

I roll my eyes. "Oh for god's sake, MacLeod, I am not haring off to Seacouver to give whoever it is, if there is indeed someone, a chance of two for one. The obvious solution is to _not_ do what they expect, and for you to stay here. The building's destroyed, what can you do there anyway?" 

"I have to go, I have employees without a job now, and the insurance needs to be sorted out." 

Either MacLeod is being thick, or he's not telling me something. I square off to him. "Your employees will be without a job regardless, and insurance companies have email and fax machines. Don't, for once in your bloody life, be predictable and obvious." 

"Better that than being like you, who I can pretty much count on being snide and unhelpful in a crisis." 

I feel as if I've been physically struck. Mac has _never_ said things like that to me – not even during the Kronos debacle. I can feel the cold prickly sensation of the flight-fight reaction build but I fight it down. "MacLeod, will you listen to me? You _can't_ go to Seacouver. Someone wants you to, therefore you do not do this." 

Mac's brows draw together in anger – I can see Joe in the corner of my eye gathering himself up, as if readying to flee the scene of combat. _Smart man_. "You have two unconnected events and you're building up a whole paranoid scenario just to keep me with you." 

"No!" I shout, furious at the injustice of the accusation. 

"Yes. Come with me, or let me handle my business, Methos. I'm a big boy, I can make my own decisions about my own affairs. The dojo is my affair, and you don't have the smallest proof there is anything in this at all." 

I don't need this, I really don't. "The Tessa look-alike?" I say, gritting my teeth. 

"You said yourself, Paris is a big place." 

"And the dojo is just coincidence." 

"Yes. Yes, it is. I know why you're scared to travel, but I'm not going to live my life like that." 

Now he's gone too fucking far. "I am _not_ scared to travel, MacLeod! Okay, if you don't trust me, what about Cassandra?" 

"Cassandra?" Joe asks. 

"It's nothing, Joe," Mac says. "Adam is building up a conspiracy in his head and he thinks we should all dance to his tune." 

_Why you...._ I lose it then. "You stupid, pig-ignorant sheep-fucking son of a _sod_!" 

I throw my best punch at him, but he easily captures my hand and jerks it up behind my back. I start to struggle, half angry, half panicking, but suddenly he's whispering in my ear. "Come with me." 

I stop fighting – I could almost laugh with relief, but that would ruin the act. He lets me go. "You're such a fucking prick, MacLeod," I say loudly and with total sincerity. _Wait,_ I signal. He nods and I move silently to Joe and bend low to speak to him _sotto voce_. 

Behind me, Mac keeps up the act. "Yeah, takes one and all that." He lets fly with a few more choice words about me, which I ignore. 

"Make it sound like I'm packing," I whisper to Joe. He nods and I stand up. More loudly, "I'm not staying here to listen to your crap!" 

"I'm taking a shower – you do what you want." He stomps off, and I move in his direction. 

Joe stands. "Maybe you should make that a cold shower, Mac," he said, but his expression belies his sarcastic tone. 

I follow Mac silently to the bathroom, where he turns the shower on, and speaks in a low voice. "Sorry, wasn't sure if we could speak freely. You have to get out of here. Go with Joe, throw a tantrum." 

"What about you?" I murmur into his ear. He's holding me close in anything but an antagonistic manner. 

"I'll really do have to go to Seacouver, but trust me, I won't go the way they think. I'll email you once I know what the score is. You know I have to go, don't you?" 

Even though my gut was screaming out a warning, I nod against his neck. "Yes," I breathe. "So, we're splitting up? Knew you were afraid of commitment, MacLeod." 

Mac grins and captures my lips in a gentle kiss. "Aye, you've worked it out. Stay with Joe until you can find a place to go – you have somewhere?" 

"Yes, Marseilles, I'll leave the address out on the counter for you. I'll go tonight – I don't want to expose Joe to risk. Mac, I don't like this." 

"Me neither, love, but we have to assume the worst – for now. Go on, and throw your best fit. And assume Joe is watched." 

"Grandmother and eggs, MacLeod?" 

"That's my boy." He kisses me again. "I _will_ see you soon, okay? And I love you, don't you forget it." 

I lean my forehead against his. "And I thee, Duncan. Call me as soon as it's safe. Leave me a voicemail, I'll call you back when I know I can't be monitored." 

I leave Mac to 'shower' and creep out quietly. Joe is kicking boxes and things around, yelling for me to 'answer him' – I gather I am being obnoxious and 'ignoring' him. I give him a thumbs up, pick up my suitcase – still mostly packed – and drop it heavily. "Right, that's me done." 

"You're really leaving?" Joe's eyes look a question. I shake my head and put a finger to my lips. 

"Of course – I'm not sticking around to be insulted. I should have known better than to hook up with someone who's never had a serious relationship in his whole life. Can I stay with you for a bit?" 

He grimaces at the comment about Mac. "Hell, I dunno, Adam. Seems to me I'm getting caught up in a domestic here." 

"Oh, please, Joe. Just a couple of nights?" I hold up a finger to indicate one night, not two. "Until I can fly back to Scotland. I just need to pick up some stuff from a couple of libraries and then I'm outta here." 

"Well, okay. I'm not happy about it. Mac's my friend too." 

_Don't over do it, Joseph._ "Then you'll be doing us both a favour, since he clearly thinks so little of me. Come on, there's a stink in here." I scribble my Marseilles address down on a piece of paper, fold it up and leave it on the counter for Mac. Then I motion to Joe, and lead the way out of the barge. 

* * *

Of all the lousy timing – I really hope this is all a mistake, but the second Methos mentioned Mac and seeing Tessa, I got that feeling in my gut that thirty years as a Watcher has taught me _never_ to ignore. I would have liked to know more about how Mac is going to protect himself, but since he's entrusted his precious Methos to me, I have to concentrate on that. Methos and me keep up an on and off discussion about Mac's 'unfairness' all that afternoon, and speculating about the people behind this, if there is anyone at all, but the main business between us is all conducted in hastily scribbled notes. One fortunate thing is that I've been holding onto a locked box for Methos ever since I took down his Paris apartment in the wake of the Lazlo affair, and it turns out that it holds (among other things that the Watcher in me just itches to have a little look-see at) the makings of several false identities for him, credit cards, the lot. All the time he's telling me what he's going to be doing in Paris for the next couple of days, he's actually preparing to slip out that evening. He hasn't told me where he's going or what name he's going to be using, not because he doesn't trust _me_ but because what I don't know, I can't tell anyone else. In one of my notes, I confess I'm worried about MacLeod. 'He was a spy in World War II, Joe. He can do sneaky if he has to,' his written answer reminds me. 

It doesn't help that much. Sure, Mac is four hundred, but his lover is five thousand years old. To tell the truth, I'd kinda relaxed about MacLeod once he hooked up with Methos four years ago – I figured that what Mac lacked in smarts, someone that old would supply, and the old man, right from day one, was looking out for the Highlander. Okay, the whole Kronos thing shook my faith a little, but even then, Methos did what he could to keep Mac safe. When I'd thought Methos had skipped town after Mac... after Ahriman... when Richie died, I mean, I was shocked. I couldn't believe the old man would walk out on Mac – walk out on me for that matter. To tell you the God's honest truth, when I got that call from him and I realised that he'd been kidnapped, it was a relief. Okay, it hadn't been a barrel of laughs for him, and it's left the pair of them with a shitload of problems, but at least it meant Methos wasn't _fundamentally_ different from what I thought he was. I know, finding out he'd been one of the Horsemen right out of the goddamn Bible should have shaken my faith in him, but you see, I ain't MacLeod. I _know_ – God almighty, do I know – the evil that even good men can do, for reasons that seem to make perfect sense at the time, and which make us sick to our stomachs when we look back on them. 

Anyway, Methos not being with Mac worried me, but they had both been sure that splitting up was a good idea until they assessed who the enemy was. Methos being near me puts me at risk, he insists, and I guess he has a point, although if this _is_ the Watchers, I'm already damned. What it is, is that Methos announces he's going to sleep at midnight, and two hours later, he's moving like a ghost around my apartment, getting dressed, collecting his pack, and coming to lean over me as I lie on my bed. He grips my hand in a voiceless farewell – we'd said all we needed to earlier – and then my front door is unlocked with barely a whisper of sound and he's gone. He's headed south, that's all he'd tell me, but he'll make contact in the next 24 hours, either direct or through Mac. Until then, all I can do is cloud the trail as much as I can. 

* * *

A lot of older immortals own blocks of flats or apartments or condominiums now, for a very simple reason – the income is nice, rises at least in line with inflation, and it means you can maintain an empty dwelling ready for your sudden reoccupation at all times. I don't need to let my manager know I'm coming, he's well used to me flitting in at irregular intervals, and although it's been over two years since I was in Marseilles, I know I won't have to answer any awkward questions about my arriving there without warning. 

Which is just as well, because I don't think I'm in a state to answer questions, awkward or otherwise. I've snapped frighteningly fast into battle mode, so I'm operating coolly and calmly so far as Joe and Mac are concerned. I'm not panicking, and I'm taking all the factors into consideration as I should, and weighing up the options, which are depressingly slight. I make it to the airport, confident that I've not been followed, and catch an early flight south, and soon I'm safely inside the small one room apartment which I have reserved for my own use in an unfashionable block in an unfashionable part of Marseilles. Once there, I give over briefly to my anxieties. What the fucking hell is going on? Either Mac, possibly I as well, are the victim of an astonishing conspiracy, or there are two innocent and unrelated coincidences to which Joe and I and MacLeod have massively overreacted. 

Insufficient data to determine and I have always found paranoia to be a healthy response to unknown and unknowable threats. There is frustratingly little I can do but sit quiet and wait. I discussed possibly hacking into Watcher computers with Joe, who after raising some sharp objections to the general principle, pointed out that it is most unlikely this person is using the central records, and is simply coordinating everything from a home PC somewhere. 

I am also unable to contact Mac easily. Mobiles are more secure than land lines, but not totally secure, and having gone to the trouble of confecting a breach between us, it's a little foolish to throw away what advantage that might win us by then cooing down the line to him. I left him a voicemail to say I was safe. He will call me when he's worked out what has happened to the dojo. You might wonder that I'm prepared to let him go to America on his own – I can't pretend that I'm not worried as all hell about what he might be walking into, but it was the lesser of two evils. Yes, I could watch his back, but he has to then watch mine. It is a sad fact but true that in becoming lovers, we have become liabilities to each other in the Game, and in any situation where one of us can be held hostage over the other.

When he and I first realised that we were going to be more than friends, we had to face the reality that the Game still has to be played on a solitary basis, and that we may have to part to prevent both our Quickenings being taken. Mac wasn't thrilled to have to face this, but since he has never before had a permanent, live-in Immortal lover, and I have, he had to accept my judgement on this. It was the only basis on which I was prepared to contemplate us being together. Much as I hate to cause him pain, his willingness to sacrifice his deeply held instincts of protectiveness in certain, unavoidable circumstances tells me more than words how much he loves me. The degree of anxiety I am feeling now would tell him how much I love _him_ – but he's not here to know it, which is, I guess, the whole point. 

* * *

So far as the Watchers are concerned, officially, MacLeod and 'Adam Pierson', the notorious ex-Watcher _cum_ Immortal, are still shacked up on the barge, playing footsie. Unofficially, yours truly is going quietly nuts wondering what's going on in Seacouver, and if I'm tearing my hair out, it's one hundred percent sure that Methos is going insane. I hear nothing for seventy two hours after Mac flies State-side, and then, finally, a call at the bar on my mobile phone. I take it in the office. Mac sounds tired, strained. "Joe, I'm faxing you the police report," is all he says before he hangs up. When I get the fax, I see why. There is clear evidence of arson, which is what we expected, but also something we hadn't – evidence of some sort of ritual being practiced before the place burned down. Candles, blood on the walls, animal bones. Oh, Jesus. 

It's still not necessarily related to Immortals, or Mac, but it's also not insurance fraud or an accident, which means we still need to be alert. Mac has asked me to call him back, which I do. "What the hell do we do now, Mac?" 

"I need to come back and talk to Adam, and we both need to get somewhere safe. There was no one here – no sign of Immortal Presence, no one watching me. Right now, I think he's more at risk than I am here. Have you heard from him? He's not picking up his phone." 

That surprises me. "Maybe he's just out. I'll try for you later. You flying right back?" 

"Yeah. Got something to take care of first." Meaning he would collect Methos on the way. 

"Okay. I'll try and let him know, and keep things together here." 

"Thanks, Joe. What a bloody mess," he says, and then hangs up. I agree. 

I can't raise Methos on his cell either. It keeps telling me the user is unavailable, which could mean anything from he's dead and the thing is fried from the Quickening (and isn't that a cheerful little thought?), to he's just turned it off while he's shopping. The longer not being able to speak to him lasts, the more worried I get. When I can't contact him after a day and a half, I _really_ start to worry. But that's nothing to how MacLeod feels when he calls to tell me he's about to catch his flight. 

"What do you mean, no answer? Call the bloody manager!" 

What 'bloody manager'? "Mac, I don't even know where he is, okay? He thought it was better that way." 

I hear some muffled curses, as if he's resting the phone on his chest, and I think he's using Italian, which I know is a sure sign he's pissed off. "Mac, look I'm sorry, man...." 

"It's not you, Joe, it's that infuriating paranoid son of a bitch. Look, I'll be there tomorrow, I'll call you. You know which city even?" 

"No," I admit. "I don't need to know. Yet," I feel forced to add. 

"Okay, I hear you. I'll call you this time tomorrow." After I confirm that, he hangs up. _Where the hell are you, Methos?_

* * *

An anxious twenty-four hours before Mac calls again. It's not good news and Mac is on a tear. "He's bloody gone, Joe!" he shouts loud enough to be heard with the phone held away from my ear, apparently less concerned about who might have bugged my office than about his missing lover. 

"Calm down, MacLeod. Is there any trace of him?" 

"None," he says slightly more quietly – my eardrum doesn't split this time. "The building manager says he was definitely here, but he took off two days ago." The confusion in his voice matches how I feel. 

"He got spooked? Someone came after him?" 

"The guy didn't say. Joe – who's on him?" 

"No one...." 

"Joe, this isn't the time to lie to me...," he starts to yell. 

I cut him off. "I ain't, MacLeod, it's the truth! Jesus, do you think I'd risk that?" How goddamn stupid does he think I am? I learned my lesson over Horton. Finally. "Mac, I really have no idea where he went." 

"Do you know what name he was using?" 

"No. All I know is what it wasn't." We'd get nowhere chasing 'Adam Pierson.' "Mac, I can see...I can put some enquiries out...." 

"Joe, we can't risk it." 

I knew he was going to say that, I'm clutching at straws. "Where are you now?" 

"Marseilles." 

Okay, I hadn't figured it to be _that_ far south. "I can, you know, look and see if anyone's recorded any activity. That's easy." Mac knows I mean whether a Quickening has been reported. It won't necessarily be good news if one has, but it might help. "Where will you be?" 

"Here. I'll wait for your call. Joe...." His voice chokes. "Joe, we have to...." 

"Yeah, buddy. We'll find him. Sit tight." 

He hangs up, and I pray I can find something for him. I know he'll be ripping Marseilles apart, but if Methos has flown out of the city, out of France maybe, there's no way we can trace him. 

Eighteen hours later, I have to report a total lack of Immortal activity in Marseilles, and he tells me he's coming back. He's as good as his word, striding into the bar just before ten, angry and as worried as I've ever seen him, even over some of the things Richie used to pull. It's a busy night, I can't just drop everything to talk to him – I feel like telling him to go back to the barge, but the man needs to talk. We can't trust my office any more than the barge, so he sits and broods and works his way methodically and with dedication down a bottle of Scotch. 

Finally I shoo the last of my customers out, and do a cursory clean up. "Mac, let's go for a ride."

He nods, and slams his glass down on the counter, hauling on his coat. He's upset, but he's not even slightly tipsy as I close up, walking steadily out of the bar. He's hailed a cab even before I've got the door locked. 

He tells the driver to just keep going, to drive in a wide, circular route, so we can talk without worrying about being overheard. We might be followed but we have to assume every move I make is watched and so is MacLeod's. Guess I'm getting a little taste of what it's like for those few Immortals who know about Watchers. 

"Mac, I don't know that there's much we can do. He probably got spooked, he'll turn up. He always does." 

"What if someone's got him, Joe? Someone like Lazlo? What if he's... taken a Challenge?" _And lost,_ is what he doesn't need to add. 

"What if he has?" I say brutally, maybe just a little ticked at the way he's been all evening. He pales. "Mac, you gotta face facts. If he's dead, we can't help him. If someone has him, they'll contact you, or they'll kill him. If he's okay, he'll come back. If he's not... we can't do anything about that." That last bit, I say more carefully, with more consideration for his reaction. 

His hands are fisted tight on his thighs, and his gaze out the car window is not seeing the Paris streets flash by, I know. I guess it's only now that I realise just how deeply his feelings for Methos run, and I'm ashamed of being so rough with him. MacLeod's had a lot of pain, a lot of it recent. He doesn't need this. 

I put my hand on his arm as I lean forward and tell the driver to take us back to the barge. Mac looks at me, worried, tired, and at a loss. "Let's go home, Mac," I say as gently as I can. "You want to stay with me tonight? Keep you company?" 

He's grateful, and not even trying to hide it. I tap the driver's shoulder and tell him to take us back to the bar instead. As we return, Mac says quietly, "They'll be watching us." 

"We'll be careful. I always am with him." 

A smile quirks his mouth. "It's funny how he can bring that out in you while making you want to kill him at the same time." 

"You'll see. He'll stroll in tomorrow and wonder what all the fuss was." 

He loses the smile. "I hope so, Joe. I really hope so." 

* * *

Methos doesn't show the next day. Or the next. Or for the next week. Mac doesn't move back to the barge, although he stops in to keep an eye on it, and even the lack of any more suspicious activity doesn't stop the worry gnawing at him. Gnawing at the both of us, but him most of all. He barely stops to eat, and his sleep is disturbed, what little he lets himself have. The rest of the time, he's either on his laptop, trying to trace Methos over the Internet, on the phone, or out running or walking, pacing and fretting. He doesn't even go to the gym to work out. 

The silence is killing us. There is no ransom demand, no report of a Quickening anywhere that can't be accounted for. Nothing. Methos' phone is still off, and there is no money coming out of his accounts – the ones we know about, anyway. 

Mac is not dealing with this well. I wonder where the calm he found in Malaysia went, and I wonder too, what will happen if, at the end of this, we find Methos dead. I really am afraid this could be it – the thing that finally tips him over the edge for good. All Watchers worry about that. It's a known risk for every Immortal. Methos seems to have lost it a long time ago, and found it again, but Mac.... Whatever it took to keep Methos going through what Lazlo did to him, Mac has too – but it's been a punishingly cruel few years for him and he's drained dry. I really don't know who I'm more concerned about. 

It is three weeks before a whisper comes to us, and that through Cassandra, of all people. She writes to Mac, and my first clue that it's related to Methos in some way comes when Mac crushes the short note in his fist and throws it away from him. I look at him for an answer why, but he's staring out a window, so I pick up the discarded paper and smooth it out. I glance at him, but he's absolutely refusing to catch my eye, so with that tacit permission to snoop, and being the Watcher I am, I read it. 

It's bad news, and although it's not the worst, it's so much not what we were expecting, it takes my breath away. When I can trust my voice not to give my feelings away, I say calmly, "At least he's alive." 

Mac whirls and jabs a finger at me. "He is until I see him." He snatches the letter away from me. "What the hell is he playing at? 'Not coming back in Shona's lifetime'? Why tell _her_ and not me for God's sake?" He squares up to me. "What the hell happened while I was away, Dawson? What did you do?" 

That cold, killer look in MacLeod's eye has been the last thing many a man saw before losing his head. I haven't been Mac's Watcher for getting on thirty years for nothing, and he damn well doesn't scare me. "No one did anything, MacLeod. He was only here a few hours, you know that. And if I knew more than that, you know I'd tell you." 

He glares and then walks away. "Why?" he shouts, before collapsing onto the sofa. He stares at the note in his hands, then looks up at me. "Why would he do this to me?" he says more quietly. 

I walk over to him, and rest my hand on his shoulder. "I don't know, Mac. I wish I did." 

He just keeps staring at me, until I can't stand it any more. I don't suppose he even knows there are tears forming in his eyes. "Do you really think he's alive, Joe?" 

"Yeah, Mac. I do. You gotta hang on to that, for now. The rest will sort itself out." 

And you know, I guess he might even believe I mean it. I wish to God I did. 

* * *

**_[January, the following year]_**

It's a long drive from Bratislava, and the ice and snow aren't making the road any safer or easier to see. There aren't many hours of daylight these days, and it's coming up for dark when I finally see the ... well, _eyrie_ is the only word for it. I know the owner of the house will know someone is coming. I have little doubt that the owner knows who that someone is. If I'm wrong about this – if I'm making a mistake – it's likely to be a fatal one, but I really don't know what to do other than this. I can send no one else, I could bring no one else. I've decided that I can risk exactly one person's neck for this, and that's mine. If I'm right, it will be worth it. If I'm wrong ... I guess all I can say it's been a good life. 

_Cheerful thoughts, Dawson_. There are no lights I can see in the thickening gloom, and the thought strikes me that I might have come all this way for nothing. But somehow, I don't think so. I suspect my friend up there is watching me, and watching what I'm going to do, before revealing himself. Can't really blame him for the fact that the Watchers have given a lot of people cause to be very worried about the organisation over the past few years, even before you factor in natural paranoia. 

My suspicions are confirmed by the open door to the garage that sits below the house. Not an invitation, I suppose, but I park up, and climb up the interior stairwell. The door at the top is ajar. I pull out my pistol, take the safety off, and push the door carefully aside, aware that I'm behaving like a disposable character in a cheap horror film – it's so obviously a set-up – but what choice do I have? I'm not really surprised cold metal kisses my ear as a gun is pointed at my head, but then I yell in shock, my hands going out uselessly to protect myself as my legs are kicked, making me fall. It's impossible to hold back my instinctive panic reaction. To an amputee, falling with your legs attached makes you pretty vulnerable – makes it real hard to get up without help, and somehow I don't think I'm going to be getting that. 

Something my host knows but he makes doubly certain by kneeling heavily on my back, crushing the breath out of me. "You have a straight choice, Dawson," Methos says as he wrenches my gun out of my hand, tosses it aside, then pulls my arms behind me and quickly cuffs me. He's obviously well-prepared for intruders. He gets off me, allowing me to gasp in some air before he flips me over with a complete lack of concern for my comfort. The light is switched on, blinding me temporarily, before his face blocks the bulb. "You can tell me how you found this place and how many other people know about it, and I will kill you quickly and easily – or you can fail to tell me now, and you can see just how inventive a torturer with five thousand years of experience and a grudge can be." 

I'm not gonna pretend that didn't frighten the crap out of me – there's no humour in his voice, I know he's not kidding – but what really shocks me is the sight of him, now my eyes have adjusted. He's shaved his head, which on him looks really weird, and grown a goatee beard, which looks just plain horrible. He's gaunt as all hell too, like he was when he first got out of this place, and that's not ever a good thing with him. But his eyes ... oh man, his eyes. I really don't want to see that emptiness. "Methos, I have to talk to you," I say, then I curl around the pain that explodes in my body as he kicks me in the side with his full weight behind his boot. 

"That was the wrong answer, Dawson. However, if you want to play it the hard way, you should know how much satisfaction it will give me to repay a few of your _kindnesses_ ," he spits out. 

"What ... what the hell are you talking about, Methos?" I cough out, squinting against the pain in my side. He bends down and grabs my shoulders for an answer but doesn't speak as he begins to drag me across the room. He makes it feel like I weigh nothing, which is not the case, let me tell you. "Methos, stop! Talk to me, man." 

He completely ignores me. He lets me go for a few seconds and I get a general impression of a large, sparsely furnished room with large windows, before I'm turned over roughly and my hands are uncuffed. For a brief moment, I hope he's come to his senses, but no, he drags me to the wall and props me against it. "Strip," he says, and then stands back to watch me. 

"What do you mean, 'strip'?" 

He leans down, takes out a knife I didn't see he was carrying and brings it to my face. "I mean, take your clothes off – all of them and your legs as well – unless you want me to take them off for you. My hands are a little shaky these days, Dawson, I think you might find they will slip." He traces the blade in his rock-steady grip down my face, my chest and then over my groin. "Would you like to see if I can manage it?" 

It's a big knife, but it's the glitter of insanity in those once so-familiar eyes that makes me begin to obey, even as I realise that I've lost the gamble I took in coming here. He steps back again. "Methos," I try again, even as I'm undressing, "I need to talk to you. Mac's in big trouble." 

He moves so fast I don't register it until my jaw feels like it's been snapped in two and my face is on fire. "You will _not_ say that name again in my presence, do you understand? Nod if you do, or I will cut your fingers off." Quickly I nod. What the _hell_? What has _Mac_ got to do with any of this? 

My fingers shake as I finish taking my clothes off. Damn, I think he really did break my jaw, so I hope he plans on killing me quickly because interrogating me over God knows what is gonna be really hard if I can't talk. Taking my legs off is really my surrender - once he takes those away, I know I'm dead. You see, Methos was always real careful about my legs. Before, I mean. He'd make stupid jokes about tin legs, and the next thing I'd find him taking over behind the bar just at the point when my stumps really began to ache. I know that was no coincidence. I think Mac was always a little creeped out by my injury, but not Methos. It was like, I dunno, some sort of honourable wound to him. That Methos would never have thrown my prostheses aside like trash, making it very clear I wasn't going to be needing _them_ again. 

The pain in my jaw and realising that Methos was really over the edge make it more trouble than it's worth to protest about him hauling me down a short flight of stairs into some sort of underground complex of rooms. Cells, I guess. Dark, grimy, made of concrete, and intimidating as hell. He drags me into one of the rooms, goes out and shuts the door (I can hear electronic locks engage) and then he's speaking to me from the next cell which is only separated from the one I'm in by a thin wall of mesh. I stare at where his voice is coming from, but there is only light in my cell, not his, which means I'm on show, not him. "I do hope you like your accommodations, Dawson. I spent two months in the room where you are now - I think they got all the blood out of the concrete but you might find a few traces. Our Mr Lazlo has another room down the hall with lots and lots of lovely toys. They're all there still," he says with a false brightness that makes me sick – from the Watcher reports I know what some of those 'toys' are and what they can be used for. "But I don't really have time to play, so let's start again. You are in a cell from which I know from personal experience is impossible to break out without help, which you don't have. You are in the hands of someone who wants you dead ...." 

"Why, for God's sake, why? What did I do to you?" I blurt out and wince against the pain. 

"....Someone who is also not stupid, and someone with a great deal of time on his hands and a great deal of inspiration when it comes to exacting revenge. Now tell me what I want to know and despite what you did, I will make it clean." 

"Methos, you may as well kill me me now, cos I don't know what you're talking about, and there's nothing I'm telling someone who's delusional. " 

The mesh rattles as if he's slammed it with his fists. "Did you think I would _forget_ , old man?" 

"For God's sake, Methos – forget _what_? What are you talking about?" A low growl that doesn't even sound human is my warning to shut the fuck up, but I continue – what have I got to lose? "I know you think I've done you wrong in some way, but the last time I saw you was in Paris and you shook my hand. If you hated my guts then, I sure couldn't see it." 

"The last time... Dawson, do you really think I would forget _the last time I saw you_?" he shouts, the calm veneer gone. "The island?" 

"Mac's island?" I ask and then remember his threat. "I haven't been there for years." 

"Where were you on May 19 this year, Dawson?" 

I'm so confused, I almost forget my situation. "In Paris. I haven't left Paris all year." 

"You were in Seacouver on May 19, Dawson. So was he." 

'He' must be MacLeod. "Well, he could have been, I'd have to check my diary...." 

Another bang on the mesh. "You were on the island! You were there, you and him. Together. You and him. You ... the two of you...." 

His voice breaks off, and I can't see his expression. "The two of us what, Methos? He hasn't seen you since he left Paris for Seacouver and you disappeared. He went nuts looking for you." 

"You're lying. He's lying. He ... he asked me to come to Seacouver." 

I pull myself over to the mesh, the skin of my stumps scuffing painfully on the concrete. I wish I could see his face. I put my hands on the separating grille, palms forward. "Methos - Mac hasn't seen you since you went to Marseilles and he went to Seacouver to look over the dojo. When he flew back, you were gone." 

"No," he mutters. "No, I know he was there. Damn you, Dawson, you're fucking with me!" 

Any minute now, he's going to come in here and shoot me. "I came here to ask for your help, Methos. Would I do that if I thought you were mad at me?" 

"You came to finish the job, that's all. You had your gun drawn." 

I can hear the walls coming down in his voice which has grown icy again. "No, man, that's just nuts! I wasn't sure it was you...." 

"Then why did you come?" he shoots back. 

"Because I need help and you're my last hope," I yell. "Mac's in trouble, and if I'm right, it mean deep shit for all of us!" 

"I don't care!' he yells back. He's mad now, but mad I can deal with. 

"You damn well should, you idiot, this is a whole lot bigger than you or me or anyone. Methos, it's Ahriman again." 

Dead silence, and then I hear the door to my cell unlock. There's nothing I can do, on the ground, naked without any weapon, but I still tense up. He walks in. The mask has dropped a little and I can see his uncertainty. "Can you prove any of this?" 

"Where I was on May 19? What do you need? I got my diary, my laptop ...." 

"Stay," he orders. Oh, funny, like I have a choice. But he leaves the door open, which is something. 

* * *

Methos was here for two months? Even if they'd done nothing else to him but leave him on this cold floor all that time, it was cruel beyond belief. I don't think he's being deliberately mean to me by leaving me here, despite his threats – I think he was just so thrown by what I'd told him, that he needed to go process it. Still, I hope he remembers I'm not immortal sometime soon, because I'm freezing and it's not like I can walk around and keep myself warm.

What he said keeps going around and around in my head. What could he think I could have done to him that makes killing me a pleasure – what is _Mac_ supposed to have done that's so bad that he doesn't even want to hear his name spoken? This is all nuts, but then it's all of a piece with the other nuttiness that I've been seeing, the reason why I've come to see Methos in the first place.

I'd taken off my watch when he hold me to strip, so I don't know how long I've been down there on my own. Long enough to be frozen to the core and to almost fall asleep because the cold is making me too tired to keep awake. After all the worry of the last couple of months, it's almost a relief to have my fate taken entirely out of my hands, even if it's only to give it over to someone who's probably, whatever I say, going to kill me. But that's okay, because if I'm right, then we're all dead. Immortals, mortals. In a strange way, I'm probably safer now than I was yesterday. At least Methos won't just leave me hanging. He'll kill me or get me out of here safe.

Listen to me, I'm babbling. It's a good thing I hear footsteps, startling me out of my dozing. He walks in, and I swear he almost looks ashamed. He's carry a bundle and when he puts it on the floor, I realise it's my clothes. "Get dressed, Joe," he says quietly. "I'll carry you upstairs."

My fingers are so cold he has to help me, and damned if he doesn't just pick me up and carry me up the stairs like some oversized parcel when I'm done. He puts me on a big leather armchair and then brings me a big mug of coffee with a healthy slug of something in it. I look at the drink and then at him. "Alcohol is the only drug in it," he says then looks away.

It's just what I need, and although my jaw has stiffened up, at least my teeth aren't chattering anymore. The heat starts to seep through me. The room is warmer than I remember from my brief stop before – has he turned the heating up? When I think I can speak without sounding shaky, I say, "I guess you found your proof."

He rubs his hand over his bald head and sighs noisily. "I don't know _what_ I found."

"Methos, what did you think I'd done to you?" He looks away, and goes to stand in front of the window, staring out on the night. "What do you think Mac did? He nearly went insane looking for you, until Cassandra told us what you wrote Shona." He stiffened. I guess the alcohol had made me bold. "Look, I don't know what you _think_ but I _know_ that man loved you to death."

"Loved?" he says in a dead voice. Now he turns to me. "Why did you come, Joe?"

"Look, Methos, I need another drink, and so will you in a minute. So why don't you pour us some of your booze and come sit."

He doesn't say a word as he does just that, pulling a bottle of cheap whiskey out of a cupboard and topping up my mug. He doesn't pour one out for himself, and when I question him with a look, he puts the bottle down. "Fucks with the medication," he says briefly.

Medication? For an _Immortal_? He sits down and looks at me, but I just can't read his expression at all. "Tell me what you thought I did," I ask again.

He leans back, his arms crossed protectively in front of himself. "I got a call from ... from MacLeod, saying all was clear at the dojo, that they had caught the people who'd done it, and that it was just insurance fraud that had gone wrong ...." He sees me shaking my head. "No?"

"Methos, I've seen the police report. It's unsolved, and there was some weird shit going on. No way would Mac say any of that. And he couldn't call you, neither could I. We both tried."

"But it was _him_ , Dawson," he insists.

"Go on," I say. "What did you do?"

"He ... the caller said ... that he'd decided he may as well go up to the island because there was some storm damage and that he would be up there for a couple of weeks. He asked me to fly over since you were going to be there too."

Again I shake my head. "Methos, he flew straight back, and I haven't been to the States all year." He's gone white, starting to stare at me. "You went? And something happened?" He nods once, sharply. "At the island."

"He ... he and you ... were there. He ... _MacLeod_ ," he emphasises, "met me on the shore and took me up to the cabin. And... then he ...."

He just chokes, completely, as if he's struggling to find words to describe the horror filling his eyes. "You guys had a fight?" He shakes his head. "Did he Challenge you, Methos?"

"No! You bloody fool, he tried to _kill_ me. With your help. You stood there, telling me I was too dangerous to let loose. He said ... he said I was too fucked up, because I couldn't .... wouldn't let him .... And then you shot at me...." He flings himself out of his chair and out of the room. I put my cup down and fight down nausea at the image he's raised in my mind. Me, _help_ Mac ... do _that_? I'm lucky Methos didn't just kill me before I walked in the door.

No sign of him for several minutes, and I figure he might need some help. My legs are on the other side of the room, so there's nothing for it but to slide off the chair, rump walk over, pull the legs back to the chair and get into the harness. I feel a little less vulnerable, the more so for finding my gun and tucking it into my pants. Now to find him.

I don't have to look far, the noise from the bathroom tells me where he is. The door is ajar, so I push it open. He's crouched in the corner of the bathroom, next to the toilet. "Go away," he mutters. There's a cloth on the edge of the bath - I wet it and hand it to him so he can wipe his face.

"I know you feel this is real, Methos," I say carefully – how can he not believe it if it's making him physically sick to even talk about it, "but you gotta believe me. I'd never do – never dream of doing something like that. You know me. You know Mac."

He stares at me with bleary eyes. "I don't know what I believe any more. My mind, my body knows what it went through. For eight months, I thought it was because of you."

"Not me. Not Mac."

"I don't believe in ghosts, Dawson." He pushes himself up on shaky arms but as I go to help him stand, he growls at me to back off. "Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me."

"But it wasn't ...."

"I don't care! Don't fucking touch me!" he shouts. I don't move, don't make a sound, just let him calm down. He pulls open the medicine cabinet and grabs a bottle from it, shakes out a couple of pills and swallows them, washing it down with water from the tap. "You never said how you found me," he says, his voice steadier now.

Only fair, I think. "Cassandra said you would be in the last place I'd think to look. This place is flagged in our database – all former Immortal properties are – and when I saw it had been bought, I checked it out." I didn't mention how many other places I searched or tracked down the owners of before Lazlo's old home come up.

"Bit of a long shot, don't you think, Joe?"

"Buddy, I'm willing to give anything a try now."

He looks at me. "You said MacLeod 'loved' me – and now he needs help? Who is she?"

He is calm now, calmer than I would have taken the news of my lover going off with someone else. "It's Tessa Noel," I say, and wait for the reaction.

* * *

The pills will take another few minutes to work, so the fact I don't turn and tear Joe's head off his shoulders out of pure anger is purely because I gave up pointless acts of barbarism three thousand years ago. "Get out," I manage to say from between clenched teeth. 

"Methos ...."

"Damn, you Joe! Get out and wait for me!" It is the same roar I used to use on Caspian and Silas, and now, as then, it works. He moves out of the small room and even shuts the door for good measure, which only confirms my already high assessment of Joseph Dawson's intelligence.

I grip the edge of the sink so hard that I swear my fingers are going to crush the porcelain. I stare into the mirror, but I don't see my own face – it is MacLeod's. Leering at me, wiping the blood from his chin, the spray from where Dawson's bullet took me high in the shoulder. Laughing because I'm wounded and helpless. I wanted to die at that moment. I prayed he would take my head, but he denied me, laughing in mockery again at my struggles and whimpers of pain.

> _"Why are you doing this?" ...._
> 
> _Broken nose. Blood in my mouth .... running .... the pain in my back, felling me ...."Because you've been denying me. I don't like being told 'no', Methos. I don't think a sane person would say no to me, after all I've done for you."_
> 
> _...."You're a menace. The insanity's always there, isn't it, Methos?"_
> 
> _"Watch it, Mac! Do you need a rope? Can't trust the bastard"_
> 
> _"Cassandra was right about you the first time. The world is better off without someone like you."_
> 
> _....Agony. Stones. Icy water, filling my throat. Darkness...._

He is with Tessa Noel. I don't even need to know how or why the dead walk again, when I have been living with the certain knowledge that Duncan MacLeod is nothing less than a demon for all these months. 

Joe thinks I'm jealous. He's wrong. I _am_ angry but only at myself for not taking the warning I had been given that bright spring day in Paris and not running as fast and as far as I could. No good can come of Immortals swearing love for all eternity. It upsets the balance of the Universe, and it has demanded a payment in flesh and in pain from me.

My knees shake, my body shakes but finally, the drug is beginning to work. It takes longer and longer each time, but it is more effective than alcohol and safer – it doesn't leave me incapacitated. I've had many months to perfect the pharmacology, and more than enough reason to. 

By the time I walk out into the living room, my breathing is under control and I can present a cooler persona to Joe. He still wears the face of one of my betrayers but it is easy enough, seeing his shaken, worried and, above all else, _concerned_ expression, to convince myself that my memory is lying to me. Or it is lying to me now, and I am imagining all this. 

I am less bothered by this possibility than I should be. I fled to Ferenc Lazlo's lair hoping that it was the supreme refuge, the best hiding place I could come up with, and yet I have been found. After more than half a year of drugging myself so I can sleep, and living with self-loathing and nightmares, I no longer care if Dawson hides my death behind his homely features. He has bearded me in my den, and I can run no more, I am done.

He's poured himself more of the execrable Scotch that is the last of Lazlo's hoard – I never touch the stuff myself – and is standing, all anxious about my mood and my reaction to his news, waiting to see what I will do. It is ironic. He has no idea that I think him as capable of bringing doom upon me as I am upon him – but I knew from the minute Joe Dawson came into this house that he was prepared to die. He is not afraid of me. Another irony, for I surely am afraid of him. "Do you mean Tessa Noel, or a look-alike, Joe?" I asked, and he's startled, I think, by how normal I sound.

He collects himself. "No, the real thing. I dunno how, I dunno why, but it's her. She knows she was dead, she knows for how long but she doesn't know how she came back."

"Or so she says," I say. "When?"

"Just after you ... when you disappeared. A couple of weeks after we heard from Cassandra ... Methos, how in hell could you think I could do something like that?"

I don't want to talk about what happened to me. "Where is the woman now?" I ask coldly, moving away from him and leaning against the window ledge.

Thankfully, he takes the hint. "Seacouver. On the island. There's something you need to see, Methos. You got my laptop?"

He doesn't seem surprised that I was able to crack his password, nor does he ask me what I found during my snooping. He simply connects the thing up to my phone line once I show him where it is, and connects to Watcher Headquarters. I don't care if they find this place – I'll be gone before tomorrow evening.

"Mac turned up with her at the bar one day. God, he looked like a man on his honeymoon," he says as he types busily, not looking at me and thus unaware of the effect his words have. "It took some convincing, but yeah, she really is Tessa. Mac looked so damn happy, you can't believe it."

"I take it he is no longer happy, if you were prepared to risk your neck to come here," I say and something – perhaps the lack of emotion in my voice – makes him swivel his head. Whatever he sees gets the message home to him. "Methos, man, I'm sorry," he says, reaching out to comfort and only stopping when I flinch. 

"Enough," I say curtly. "What are you showing me?"

He swallows and turns back to the laptop. "They lived on the barge for a couple of months, and then he comes to tell me they're moving back to Seacouver. More than that, he didn't want me following them. 'So what's going on?' I wanted to know." He pauses for dramatic effect.

"Do continue," I say irritably. Sometimes I think Dawson takes his Irish heritage too seriously.

"He told me she was pregnant, and that he's the father."

"He's what?" I burst out, laughing at the absurdity of the idea, despite the situation. "Joe, MacLeod is many things but he's not _stupid_."

"Hey, pal, remember who you're talking to," he says indignantly. "I thought he meant she had got herself pregnant and he was going to accept the child as his. But he swore up and down the bar she had been with no one and the child is his. He got real mad when I tried to point out the facts. He said he knew all that but if Tessa could come back from the dead, she could get pregnant by an Immortal. Then he got madder with me, and left. That's the last time I saw him."

"He's insane." A confirmation if one were needed, for me – but wait, that would mean that Joe.... The evidence is too conflicting, and I shove that thought aside.

"Maybe." He shows me the screen. MacLeod and a tall, surprisingly delicately featured blonde, both looking happy. She is unmistakably gravid. "But something put that baby in Tessa Noel's belly. If it wasn't Mac, what was it?"

His choice of words tells me what he thinks the answer is. "It can't be 'Ahriman' – Ahriman doesn't exist. It's part of the Persian cosmology. It's no more capable of being destroyed than the Judeo-Christian devil is."

"Something got Richie killed, Methos," he says sharply. "Something got Sophie Baines two headstones and two death certificates. _Something_ gave me my goddamn legs back!"

"Joe, MacLeod can no more have defeated it than Canute could command the tide. He said it to me himself, Joe. He destroyed the ultimate evil – and then what? Whatever he was fighting, it wasn't a Zoroastrian creation myth."

"I don't care what it's _called_ , Methos," he shouts, with considerable balls for a man who was, and still is, very much at my mercy. "I just want it stopped. Before it destroys Mac, and before that thing comes out of a dead woman's womb."

Even when I had Joe in that cell, the man wasn't afraid. He is, next to MacLeod, probably the bravest man I've ever met, and better than MacLeod in that he has more sense. Joe Dawson is scared by this. That worries me. It worries me very much indeed.

I glance at the clock – midnight, and Joe has had a long drive and been mistreated at the end of it. I doubt another few hours will make a difference one way or the other. It strikes me that Joe is getting older, and is visibly so since...not the last time I saw him, as that seems to have been an illusion, but since he last saw me. It strikes me also that I had been principally concerned with the effect of the strange episode that had caused Richie's death had had upon MacLeod, and I had thought little in the last year and a half of what it had meant to Joe. I no longer could trust even the evidence of my own eyes, but _this_ Joe, the one who seems to be most like the one I once called friend, looks old and tired and a little fragile. I cannot allow myself to feel any sympathy or remorse for that. I can, however, do as I have done for much of my life and simulate concern. "I need time to think, you're tired. We will talk in the morning."

"But Methos...."

"No. We will talk in the morning," I say again, emphasising the last word. "Come, I'll show you where you can sleep."

This house came with all Lazlo's furniture and most of his belongings bar his personal papers, so there is a bed in the guest bedroom for guests I neither expected nor want. It is the work of a moment to find sheets and bedding, and I am about to leave him to it when he gasps. "Is something wrong? Are you sick?" I ask, looking at him more closely. He is sporting a pretty nasty bruise along his jaw and I may have done him more serious injury. "Are you in pain?"

"No, no, it's not that – I just forgot I was going to show you something else."

"In the morning, Joe...."

"No, goddammit! Methos, this is important!"

Exasperated with the old fool's stubbornness, I stand aside as he stumps his way back into the living room and powers up the laptop again. "I really can't see what can't possibly wait, Dawson," I say, sitting down beside him.

"Methos, do you remember the date when Mac killed Kronos?"

"Do you really expect me to keep stuff like that in my head?" I ask, incredulous and angry that he is bringing this shit up too.

"Keep your panties on, there's a point. It was September 26. That sound right to you?"

"Get on with it," I tell him coldly. _I need to get out here._

"Mac asked to look through Lazlo's papers, to see if I could get a handle on why he'd – uh ...."

"Yes, why he'd kidnapped me and been nasty, we can spell 'torture', I presume? Joe, you aren't making me a happy person here."

He took a deep breath. "Lazlo records meeting Kronos and making love to him. On October 10. Kronos gave him a letter that time. That was the instruction about you and Cassandra."

I stare at him. He looks grimly satisfied at the obvious impact. "You can assume you have my full attention at this point," I say hoarsely. "A mistake?" 

"I don't think so. He refers to events in Russia which we know took place after September."

I stand up and back away. "Are you telling me that a man who had been dead for two weeks managed to arrange for me to snatched from a Paris street and keep prisoner for months?" I realise I'm yelling. "Are you telling me that Kronos _wasn't_ behind this?"

"Buddy, I don't know what I'm telling you. But if you want proof that this isn't just to do with MacLeod, there you go."

 _I need to get out of here._ "I'm going to bed," I say, and he blinks.

"Methos?"

"Leave me alone!" I shout and stumble out, slamming the bedroom door behind me and locking it immediately. Once safe in my room, I sink to the floor, clutching my stomach, trying not to start dry heaving. _Leave me alone._

* * *

If I thought Methos was nuts before, that little display confirmed it, and if I had a lick of sense, I'd get my ass out of here, into my car and away. Guess I don't have any sense because I just sigh, and then go looking for some ice for my jaw. I ache all over from lying on the concrete for hours, not to mention that kick to the side, and some of us ain't immortal like some people I could mention. 

I'm too tired and a little too shaky to want to go back down to the garage and get my bag, but then I see Methos has brought it up. It's sitting against a wall in the living room. I suppose he wanted to look for his proof there. Every time my mind tries to go to the place where I can imagine what he described to me, what he think I'd done to him, my thoughts skitter away from it. I just don't see how he could believe I would assist Mac in trying to kill him. I can't believe he would think _Mac_ would try to kill him, after all Mac went through to bring him back from the edge. 

I don't care if what's behind this isn't 'Ahriman' - if there really is such a creature – all I know is I'm damn sure that who or whatever is behind this is the same whatever who got Richie killed. I'm sure it's behind Tessa's reappearance, and this pregnancy, and as ecstatic as I would be for Mac if it were all real, I can't believe anything good can come out of this. It's already turned Methos into a fruitcake, and it's beginning to look like it started that ball rolling by having Ferenc Lazlo torment the guy almost to death two years ago.

Lazlo. What is Methos doing holed up here in the guy's own place? How can he even stand it? Does it mean the nightmare in his head is worse than the memories being here brings back, or is it his own twisted logic that made him hide where no one could believe he would ever return? 'The last place you'd expect,' Cassandra said, but it wasn't a prophecy – she'd been going on what she'd known of Methos when he was a Horseman. Even then, it took me more than a month to even think about checking whether this place had changed hands. 'Alexei Alexseev Plaksin' hadn't rung any bells, but the description of the purchaser had. Methos hadn't shaved his head at that stage. He'd bought it before Mac had left to stay with him in Glenfinnan, which made me wonder all over again about the labyrinth Methos called his mind. I'm sure Mac knew nothing about him owning this place.

I pour some more of the crappy Scotch and drink it slowly, holding a bag of ice in a towel against my face. I wonder if I shouldn't have tried harder to stick with Mac, but he'd made it clear that he considered me a threat to his pregnant woman, and what he'd do if he found me snooping around. The pictures I'd shown Methos were taken by another field operative, the one time we risked sending someone up to the island. Mac has too many friends in that area for any of us to hang around and be caught at it.

Thinking about Mac almost makes me want to break down and bawl. I know what Mac went through when Tessa was killed, and I can see why he's over the moon that somehow she's back again, but the dead aren't meant to walk around. Immortals are one thing, I guess you could see them as being against all natural laws, but Tessa Noel was _dead_. I saw her body in the morgue, I saw it lying in the chapel before the funeral, I watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. She's not Immortal. She shouldn't be here. 

I can't see how any of this is going to end well, not with Methos fucked up, and Tessa a figment, and God alone knows what it is she's carrying. God. Mac just glowed, he radiated happiness when he told me she was expecting. Nothing I could say to him, nothing he knew about Immortals and their infertility made the slightest difference. He'd been given the two things he wanted from life more than anything else – his beloved Tessa and a child – and no one was going to interfere with that. I think Methos disappearing on him like we thought he had, cracked something in Mac's head, to be honest with you. He was looking for something to ease the pain of that, and then a miracle came along. You can't blame him for wanting it to be real.

Except I am, and I will, and if I don't die trying and if I succeed, he's gonna hate me for the rest of my life. But then I think of the man who is on the other side of the door, what he'd paid already for Mac's 'dream', and I know I can't let 'Ahriman' succeed. Nothing could justify that sort of pain.

My jaw is numbed, and I'm so tired I'm beginning to be dizzy with it. I look at my watch – two a.m., more than time to go to bed. I get my shaving kit and head to the bathroom, but then remember what happened earlier. I open the medicine cabinet – not usually the most well-stocked item in an Immortal household. I remember Mac being embarrassed once when I had a headache and all he could offer me were five year old aspirin that crumbled as you touched them, but this one has any number of little pill bottles in them. The drug names mean nothing, so I take two different ones back out to the living room and connect to the Internet again.

A quick search and I have the information I'm looking for. Man, it's a miracle Methos can actually walk and talk with this shit in his system. Tranquilisers, anti-anxiety drugs – some of the strongest drugs of their kind, and the doses aren't small either. Immortals don't take drugs except for recreation – not because drugs don't work on them, they just don't need them. By the time they take something for the pain of an injury, it's healed, by the time they buy a remedy for a cold, their systems have beaten the virus to a standstill. But these, what Methos is taking, they're for a different kind of injury. The kind you can't bandage even though it can kill you just as certain as a gutshot can. 

Mac said a couple of things which made me realise that Methos had tried hitting the sauce to cope with what was happening to his mind after he first escaped from Lazlo. It hadn't helped him much so he'd stopped. Looks like he's finally found something that does work. This, I hadn't expected. A fully alert Methos, crazy or not, would be the first man I'd choose to have by me if Mac was not around (which he's not) – but a drugged Methos? Going up against a demon and a delusional, hyperprotective Highlander?

We are well and truly screwed.

* * *

It had been obvious that I was not going to sleep without some chemical help, and I had briefly debated with myself as to whether I should risk drugging myself to the eyeballs with Joe in the other room. Finally I decided the risk of being attacked in my sleep, locked door or no, was outweighed by the benefit of being well-rested and calm to face the decisions that would have to be made in the morning. Either I had imagined the whole attack by Joe and MacLeod in May, in which case, I have nothing to fear from Joe – or I am hallucinating now, in which case, nothing I decide upon will have any impact. 

In any event, the sleeping pills work as advertised, and I wake with a clear head, although momentarily bewildered as to why I have a feeling of dread in my gut before I remember who came here last night and why. I'm in no hurry to leave my sanctuary – either this room or this house – and the more I think about it, I wonder what it is I can do. 

MacLeod has clearly thrown me over in favour of his former lover, something I suppose disappoints me – I have spent months killing my feelings and it is impossible to retrieve the joy I felt so briefly with him – but doesn't surprise me, and there is no reason to expect anything I say about the miraculous pregnancy would sway him where Joe has failed. I run through the people I know from MacLeod's past who might have a hope of persuading him that there was something very wrong about Tessa's reappearance. Amanda, I dismiss immediately – Duncan has never paid the slightest attention to her opinions that I can see. Connor MacLeod?

There is no doubt that his revered kinsman's opinion weighs heavily with MacLeod, but Connor has been missing for years. It caused something of a stir in Watcher circles, and unless he has turned up, his help cannot be sought. I also wonder whether he would even want to interfere. Connor is a fine man, but susceptible, I've always found, to superstition and a belief in the supernatural, and might even think Tessa's return entirely plausible. He, like Duncan...MacLeod...also finds the childlessness of Immortality hard to bear. No, Connor MacLeod is perhaps not someone we can ask for help.

Cassandra? Another one of us who has an unhealthy belief in mystical matters. I don't want to admit that I don't want her involved on my own account. That leaves me and Joe. And really, the only one who seems remotely sane is Joe.

Thus I prepare to tell him I think there is nothing I can do, and that MacLeod, having made his bed, must lie in it. I don't share Joe's belief that Armageddon is coming as a result of this, any more than I believe that 'Ahriman' is behind it. A quiet, nagging voice asks what I think _is_ behind it, but I silence it like I silence all the other voices that bother me.

My resolution stays firm even as a ghost of guilt makes me wince slightly at the sight of Joe's discoloured face. His own fault, I tell myself firmly, for coming to me without warning, even though if I had been warned, I would have disappeared. He's found my coffee and is making a pot. He looks tired and is moving carefully, no doubt because of bruised ribs. "I should check you over," I say curtly but he shakes his head.

"I'm okay. We need to talk."

I hold my hand up to make him wait, then go to the bathroom and look to see what I have in the way of painkillers. Nothing, but I do have some mentholated rub for more persistent exercise strain, and returning to the kitchen, I make him sit so I can apply it. Yes, he has a lovely purpling area to match the mark on his jaw. I don't waste his time, or mine, in apologising. I had my reasons, he knows them. I wish I had some aspirin for him though.

When I am done, and have cleaned my hands, he pours out my coffee. I don't bother with breakfast – food is something I rarely bother with, only when raw hunger drives me to seek nourishment. He's had to make do with crackers and some cheese. He won't starve, and it's obvious he is eager to get onto more weighty matters. "So, I figure we should bring Cassandra in on this," he begins, but stops as he sees my expression. "Methos, she knows about this sort of thing."

"Exactly, Joe. She will assume there is a supernatural explanation. I prefer to apply Occam's razor."

He folds his arms and glares at me. "Dead people walking sure looks supernatural to me, Methos."

"You told me," I say coolly, "that a look-alike turned up before. The most logical explanation is this is another one."

He made a sound of disgust. "The baby?"

" _I've_ had children, Joe. All it needs is a cooperative partner and a fertile friend."

"MacLeod wouldn't ...."

"Perhaps not," I interrupt, "but this 'Tessa' might."

Those gray eyes continue to pin me. I sip my coffee and stare calmly back. I'm expecting to be left in peace and quiet in short order, given his exasperation with my stolid rejection of his concern. "In any event, Joe, I'm not sure what you're expecting anyone to do. MacLeod does as MacLeod does – he always has done."

"Ain't you forgetting something, Methos? What you think happened to you?"

"As has been noted by various people, I'm not the full barrel of biscuits. I probably imagined it."

He reaches into his coat and throws something at me. I catch it – one of my pill bottles. "That's some heavy duty imagination, if you ask me. Like I imagined this?" He points to the bruise on his jaw.

"Yes," I say, unrelenting. "I had a breakdown, it's obvious. I've been having nightmares about MacLeod's rejecting me, or bringing up my past, and that was the result. Simple psychology, and not a demon in sight."

"You are the fucking limit, Methos," he yells, levering himself up. I have to admit his language surprises me. A well brought up Irish Catholic boy with impeccable manners and a quaint way of conducting himself that I have always found charming, Joe never resorts to being foul-mouthed. "You damn near killed me when I got here, and now you're telling me it was just some sort of mistake? I should maybe just laugh it off? Say, 'never mind, you thought your best friend and lover was trying to kill you, and that's okay?' You really must be nuts!"

"I believe that is exactly what I'm saying, Dawson." I pour myself another cup of coffee, and hope he can't see my hands are shaking.

"Then come back with me, Methos," he pleads, his eyes suddenly warmer, concerned. "You _can't_ live like this, living on drugs, scared out of your mind ...."

"I'm not _scared_ , Dawson, and I don't want or need your help. I don't want or need your sympathy, and I don't want or need to be involved in MacLeod's affairs any further."

He stiffens at the steel in my voice. "I thought you two were in love. I thought you cared about him."

"He's made other choices. I have no place in his life any more. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will stop bothering me and go back to Paris and get on with your life."

"If you want me to leave, you're going to have to shoot me and send me back in a box. I can't help one of my friends, I'm not letting you destroy yourself too."

I stand up, walk over to him and begin backing him up until he reaches a chair and I push him into it. He stares up at me with the first trace of fear directed at me I have yet seen. "Listen to me, Joseph Dawson. I didn't ask you to come here. I didn't ask your opinion on how I conduct my life. And if you don't leave _now_ , you will indeed be going out of here in a box." I grip his chin and he winces at the pain I'm causing, pressing on the bruise. "I have killed thousands of mortals in my time, please don't make the mistake of thinking one more will injure my conscience in the slightest."

His eyes have widened to the point where I can see white all around them. I set him free and step back. "Now get up, pick up your bags and go. Go now."

Astonishingly, he makes no move to do so. I really must be losing my touch. "And what if the next person Ahriman goes after is Shona?" he says.

Fuck him. "Shut up. Shut up!" I yell, shoving at him in the chest as he starts to rise, pushing him back down into the chair.

"Do you think Ahriman doesn't know she's your Achilles heel, Methos? What about Cassandra? Everyone who is close to Mac has been attacked and weakened, you think she's going to escape? _How the fuck do you explain Lazlo, Methos_?"

I go still. I had forgotten about that particular anomaly. "Lazlo just got the dates wrong," I whisper.

"No. He didn't." Joe stares at me steadily. "Think about it, Methos. Who are the two people in Mac's life who could help him deal with Ahriman? You and Cassandra. Both powerful, both experienced. Ahriman got Richie killed, he made sure you and Cassandra were right out of the picture. He tried to get to me, to stop me helping. He isolated Mac."

"Duncan defeated him. He said he did." I'm aware how pathetic that argument sounds.

"He was wrong," Joe says quietly, unnecessarily.

"I can't help him," I say desperately. "I'm weak, Joe. I can't fight this, I can't even help myself. I can't be used against Mac if I'm here."

"You _can_ help him, Methos. Come with me, meet with Cassandra. There has to be something we can do."

I stare at him some more, and then, almost against my will, I nod. I was never able to resist Joe. I don't know why I thought now would be any different. "I won't go to Scotland."

"That's okay. She can come to Paris."

"Has Connor ever surfaced?"

He shakes his head, with obvious regret. "No. Not a whisper. Don't think I didn't look."

I take a seat on one of the bar stools. "I won't travel with you. I won't risk myself, or her, for this. I will not allow you to put the child in any danger. MacLeod would never permit it. He would not want Cassandra to be harmed, whatever is at stake."

"Agreed." He looks relieved. Smug bastard.

"You return to Paris, I'll meet you there within the week. Do not tell Cassandra where I am, and do not call me here. Who knows I'm here?"

"No one, I swear, Methos."

I believe him, God knows why, considering what he does for a living. "See that this continues to be the case. If you have any records, diary entries, concerning me, destroy them. If I get the slightest hint that there is another Immortal – or a Watcher – on me, I'll kill you and leave. I promise that to you, Dawson."

He regards me steadily. "I believe you. No one will find you through me, Methos. I promise that to you."

If he thinks that is all I will need to reassure myself, he's far more stupid than I know him to be. "Then leave this morning. I will make contact with you. If you don't see me within a week – assume I am not coming. Do not attempt to find me."

He stands up. "You planning on not coming? Are you just trying to get rid of me?"

I laugh harshly. "What a nasty suspicious little man you are. No, Joe, I'm just making contingency plans. But I tell you this – if I do _not_ turn up, then leave it be. Leave MacLeod be, get yourself to safety. I doubt we can do anything anyway, but you have no hope on your own. You were not proof against this before, you will not be this time."

"Okay. I understand."

"Then godspeed, Joe."

He smiles suddenly at the unexpected kind words. I hardly know why I said them, but I am glad I have, even if I have precious little belief in or hope of help from any deity at all. 

* * *

It's a nerve-wracking week. Not a word from Methos and more than a slight hint that he won't turn up after all. I contacted Cassandra and she agreed to come after a bit of hemming and hawing, mostly about the safety of her daughter. Don't know what she arranged there, but I'll leave her Watcher in Glenfinnan. He can report back if anything happens. She's booked into a hotel, and all we can do is wait. 

I wish I'd stayed with Methos and convinced him to travel back with me. I wish we had someone on Mac. I wish Jason Landry's fucked up journal gave me the slightest hint about any of this, but the little we could understand and which was in actual English said nothing about the dead rising, or Immortals having babies or people imagining their lovers are trying to kill them.... What if this is something new? God help us, another demon? Something we haven't come across at all?

Cassandra has some sort of link to Mac which lets her know if he's alive, but she says that all she senses in him is profound peace. Which makes me feel worse that I'm trying to destroy it, but she hasn't – yet – raised any objection to what I'm trying to do. We didn't talk about Methos – I know what Methos was saying about her before all this, but he's not so enthusiastic now and I don't know how much he wants me to tell her. The last thing I need is for him to lose his trust in me all over again.

The son of a bitch makes me wait nearly the full seven days before he calls me on my cellphone. "Julian le Pauvre, half an hour," he says and hangs up. I swear and only just resist throwing the phone across the room because it's mine and not the Watchers'. I dial Cassandra's hotel and tell her to come – I'm assuming Methos wants her to come, since he didn't say she wasn't to, but I suppose he might be leaving it open so he can bug my ass later for getting it wrong. At least he came.

I haven't been in Darius' church for years. I used to go there a lot, Watching Mac, but he hasn't been here for one reason or another in a long time, and so neither have I. I don't have the spiritual or nostalgic ties to this small, unremarkable building but as I enter it, it's hard not to imagine the ghost of Darius looking over us. I can only hope he would bless what we're attempting. We need all the help we can get.

* * *

I watch Joe walk hesitantly into the church, looking around him nervously, not something I associate with him at all. I don't reveal myself until I see Cassandra, after which time concealment becomes impossible. She looks up, being one of us who can actually sense direction in other Immortal Quickenings. It's not a trick I have, but Kronos did. It made him deadly, and I have no doubt it has contributed to Cassandra's longevity.

I affect nonchalance as I descend the choir stairs. "Glad you could make it, Cassandra," I say lightly, coming to stand before her and wait for the inevitable. It's not long in coming.

She reaches for my face, but aborts the movement. "Methos? What has happened to you?"

I glance at Joe, surprised he hasn't told her. "I'm not entirely sure," I say with completely honesty. "But it is not relevant...."

"Bull, Methos," Joe says with typical bluntness and considerable lack of respect for the secret of my identity. "She needs to know everything, if she's gonna help."

I sigh quietly. She takes my hands in hers and I try not to flinch. She raises an eyebrow at my instinctive reaction. "Tell me," she says, and I open my mouth to obey before a wave of anger sweeps over me.

I free myself and back away. "Keep your tricks to yourself, witch!" She stares at me. "I know what you're doing. Use the Voice on me again and I will kill you, Holy Ground or not."

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Joe tense up, but she stays relaxed. "As you wish. I apologise, I meant no harm, Methos," she says in a calm, even tone I envy for its utter lack of fear. "I still need to know what has happened."

I shrug with indifference I almost believe now. "I got it into my head that Joe and Mac united to try and have me killed or put away. I understand now that Joe can't have been there, so I must have been deluded."

"What about the rest?" Joe says. My silence answers him. He can tell her this. "We think that Lazlo took you two because this – whatever it is – came to him as Kronos. Kronos had been dead for two weeks by then."

She gasps and turns to me for confirmation. I shrug. I still don't know what to make of that. I gesture to the wooden chairs in the nave. "Shall we sit? This could take a while."

"We'd be more comfortable back at the bar," Joe starts to say until I glare at him. "Pal, Holy Ground didn't stop this thing before."

"It will stop Immortals, Dawson, that is all I care about."

"You fear me, Methos?" Cassandra says coolly, appraising me with her wide green eyes.

"No more than any other of our kind," I respond in like tone. "Will you sit?"

With her queenly manners, she does just that, every line of her posture speaking of her indifference to any threat I might pose. Joe joins her, but I remain standing. "Dawson is convinced this child must not be human, Cassandra. Do you have any way of telling if it is?"

She shakes her head. "Not from this distance. I cannot sense it or the woman at all. Only Duncan, and only because of our bond." She looks at me narrowly. "Why have you have been singled out, when Amanda has not?"

 _Because Mac loved me more_ , I nearly blurt out, but she's right, there is something wrong there. I turn to Joe. "Was there any suggestion that Amanda suffered any interference before, or now?"

"None, Methos. She never said anything, and her Watcher saw nothing out of the ordinary."

"Then," Cassandra says, "why you, Methos? I assume I was a threat to this thing because of my link to Duncan. What do you have that threatens it so?"

"Joe was also attacked," I point out. "Ryan was killed."

"But Joe has not been attacked this time. You have been twice now. What do you have that makes you special?"

"My pretty brown eyes?" I quip, uncomfortable at her scrutiny. Joe snorts in annoyance. "I honestly don't know, Cassandra."

"Think," she insists.

"I don't _know_!" I shout, forgetting where we are and then not caring when I do remember. "Dammit, Cassandra, Mac was my friend and then my lover. Nothing more. Nothing at all now."

"Sit," she commands and out of pure bolshiness, I don't obey. "Methos, if you don't help me, I can't help you. Same as when we were prisoners. We need to work together."

"We are no longer prisoners," I say, unable to hide the tension in my voice. I stay on my feet, and move back a little. 

This was a terrible idea. I'm on the verge of walking out when she speaks again. "Sit, relax, Methos. You are among friends."

I listen for any trace of the Voice, but all I hear is her normal calm tones. Still wary, I sit. "Mac tried to kill me, on Holy Ground too," I tell her. "How do I know you won't try for my head?"

"You don't, if you don't know if it's me. Close your eyes, Methos. Listen to my voice. Listen to what your mind and body are telling you. Listen," she says, then goes silent.

I look at Joe, and he puts his hand over his coat pocket to tell me he has his gun. He might of course shoot _me_ , but then there is nothing to stop him doing so anyway. I pull up a chair a little way from them and sit. "Don't be afraid, Methos," Cassandra says quietly. "Close your eyes and just listen to me. Joe will protect you," and then I know she saw his movement too.

Reluctantly I do as she asks and close my eyes, although my hand goes inside my coat to grip the handle of my broadsword. "Shona misses you," she says softly and I can't help but jerk a little at the sound of the child's name. "She's filling the croft with still lifes. She says the teacher at her school doesn't know half as much as you do about art. They went on a school trip to London and she saw the mummies that you told her about...."

Her voice continues, telling me the small inconsequential details of her life, Shona's life, that just a year ago were what were the integral threads of the tapestry of my existence and made it worth going on. "Enough!" I say, roughly, swiping my hand across my eyes. "Yes, you are who you appear to be. What does that prove?" I let the snideness come through.

She ignores the tone and the evidence of my emotion. "It proves that you know the truth when you see it."

"Your scientific methodology sucks, Cassandra."

"Perhaps. But I think you know – somewhere in your mind – what you saw when you were attacked by Duncan. I think part of you knows it wasn't real."

I snort. "Of course it wasn't real, you stupid woman. I thought Joe was there, and Joe could not have been there. I imagined it."

"You didn't imagine it, you fool," she snaps. "Look at you! Imagination didn't reduce you to this, any more than you _imagined_ what Lazlo did to you. Someone did attack you, did try to kill you, and I think what makes you a threat is that somewhere inside you is the knowledge of what that is. That's why you have been under attack, to knock you off balance, so you can't think."

"Why have you escaped?" I ask, deeply unconvinced by this logical leap. 

"I don't know. Perhaps because your bond is the strongest. Perhaps your powers are greater than mine."

"Crap."

"What is your explanation then, oh rational one?" she says irritably, crossing her long legs and making it clear I'm making her angry.

"Perhaps I'm just insane," I say as calmly as I can.

"You don't appear insane," she says, clearly shocked at my words. "Why is the possibility of your having a special gift so repugnant you would rather doubt your own mental stability than consider it?"

"Because mental illness has a logical, provable existence and supernatural powers of the mind do not."

"Really? Methos, slap your face. Hard."

My hand is stinging even before I process her words. Realising what's happened I lunge at her in anger. "Stop!" she says, and I'm helpless to disobey. "Sit down," she commands, and my legs fold and I collapse onto the nearest chair. "You were saying?" she says with insufferable smugness.

"You know the Voice is to do with harmonics. It's not supernatural," I snap at her, still inclined to take her head on general principles.

"If you say so, Methos. But if you have the courage, I think taking you back to what happened with Duncan might be useful."

I get to my feet again and this time she makes no move to stop me. "No," I say through gritted teeth. 

I can see Joe is also concerned. "Cassandra, I don't think that's such a good idea."

"It's necessary, Dawson," she says. "Methos has been almost completely disabled by this, and I think unless we know why, and what we are dealing with, we cannot help Duncan."

"Then MacLeod can save himself," I almost shout. "I don't want anyone trampling through my mind to entertain themselves. He can damn well sort his own mess out for a change."

I walk out – well, walking is a more dignified description than running, but I'm out of the church in seconds. I look up briefly at the face of Darius' church. "I'm sorry, old friend," I whisper. "Some things are too much to ask." I begin to walk away but soon feel Immortal presence. I hunch up in my coat against the bitter wind and walk on. As soon as the hand hits my shoulder, I whirl and slam my accoster against a wall. "Damn you, you silly bitch," I hiss at Cassandra. "You could lose your head doing that."

She doesn't like my hands on her, but I didn't appreciate her little stunt back in the church, so I guess that makes us even. "You had me fooled, Methos, back in Lazlo's dungeon."

"Yeah, what about?" I let her go and step back. She shakes herself and smoothes her clothes ostentatiously.

"I thought you were many things, but I no longer thought you were a coward. I guess I was wrong."

"Oh please, Cassandra, leaves the cheap manipulation for your daughter. I couldn't give a damn whether you respect me, now or ever. I'm leaving." She grabs my arm, and I lose my temper. "Take your fucking hand off me, or you'll be trying to stitch it back on."

Without haste, she takes it away. "And Duncan?"

"Duncan MacLeod is nothing to me." We're beginning to attract attention and I walk into a side alley, not really expecting that she won't follow me.

"Your affection for a bunch of murderers lasts three thousand years, and yet the finest of all Immortals is gone from your thoughts in a few months? I'm glad you removed yourself from Shona's life," she spits. "I never knew you were so trivial."

I sigh, utterly weary and knowing that whatever she says, I won't permit what she asked. "Insult away. Tell me I'm lousy in bed while I'm at it and that I have bad breath. I don't _care_ , Cassandra. He's got a new love and a child. I can't compete with that."

"Fool," she says, then actually spits on the ground. "Self-pitying, blind idiot. Duncan is in the hands of evil, an illusion that wants to destroy him and you want to leave him without succour. Kronos was right about you."

I raise my fist at her. "What do you want me to do? Go and kill his woman? The child he thinks is his? Tell me, you can sense him. How does he feel? Is he happy? Sad?"

"Happy," she admits reluctantly. "Very happy," she adds, ever honest.

"Yes, I bet."

"But it's all false!"

"Who the hell cares?" I shout. "Think. Think, Cassandra. Think of what he has suffered, and the joy he must have now. It's as real to him as the attack I experienced is to me. Does it matter if it's real to anyone else?"

She stares. "You would let him live a lie?"

"I would let him live in peace," I whisper harshly. "I would live in peace myself. There is nothing to life, if not that. He has run a long hard way, woman. Give him this."

She shakes her head. "The child is an illusion. She is an illusion. When the dream ends, he will suffer more."

"But not at my hands! I won't do to him what he – what I thought he did to me. Besides, you don't know, I don't know, that there is any harm in any of this."

She raises her hand and touches my cheek. I jerk away. "Nothing good would cause this," she says gently. "You know that in your heart. You're afraid, but it doesn't change the truth."

I bow my head, unable to look at her eyes which are unexpectedly kind. "I can't do it, Cassandra. I'm held together with spit and pills. Shona could beat me now." A painful smile warps my lips. "I think I'd like to let her try."

"You could come home," she says, taking my hand again and this time I let her. "Where have you been?"

"Where I can hurt no one, and no one can hurt me."

"Ah, so you have been in your grave?" She smiles at her own wit, but it's not a happy expression. "But you're wrong if you think no one is hurting you. You are hurting you. You are apart from those who care for you, who want you to come back."

"I will not put you or her or Jane at risk," I say fiercely, grasping her hand in my turn. "Better to tell her I have died, Cassandra. She will forget."

"No, I think not. I swear Shona can remember being born. She never forgets anything." We smile for real, for this is something that is undoubtedly true. "Methos, I didn't come just for Duncan's sake, you know. I don't want to lose you either."

"And is that ironic or what?"

"Not any more. You know, even if we can't solve Duncan's mystery, remembering what happened to you might help you. I want to help."

"And I want to forget," I say, tugging away my hand. "God, Cassandra, all I have are nightmares now. I don't want to wake all that up again."

"I'll be there. I won't allow you to come to harm. Have I not proved myself by now?"

She has the right to appeal to me. She has been my saviour more than once, and I owe her. I take her by the shoulders and kiss her gently on the forehead. "All right, I'll let you try." Under my hands I feel the tension leave her. "Where's Joe?"

"Back at the church."

"Then call him and tell him to come to your hotel. We can do this there."

* * *

I must, finally, irrevocably, be out of my mind. I'm seriously considering letting an Immortal who used to be my sworn enemy pick over my pysche in front of a mortal who I have spent close on eight months thinking had tried to murder me. But Joe was right. I can't continue like this. I could easily run, hide, pretend I had never heard of Duncan MacLeod, or Cassandra, or the Watchers – but they were hardly likely to forget about me. If Joe wishes me harm, he found me once, he can find me again, and I am not fool enough to think that Cassandra's powers are so limited that she could not find me if she truly wanted to. I don't intend to spend the next fifty years running. I haven't got to be five thousand years old by behaving like a fugitive. I'm a great believer in the principle of hiding in plain sight.

Right now, the only protection I have against Cassandra is Joe – and _vice versa_. I maintain a calm façade as we enter the plush lobby of the hotel in which Cassandra is staying, and wonder just where her income comes from. She lives simply, but she never seems to want for anything, or to stint herself or Shona out of necessity. We all have our secret funds, I suppose. God knows MacLeod is wealthy in a way you would never guess from the way he lives.

Joe is waiting for us, and together we go up in the lift. Her room is not large, but it has two beds, and is not the cheapest room available, I'd bet. "Do you mind if I have a mineral water from your bar? I need to take a pill," I ask, already reaching for the fridge door. 

She puts her hand over mine. "What kind of pill? A sedative?"

"Yes, not that it's any of your business," I say irritably, knowing our keen-eyed Watcher companion is noting all this.

"Oh, but it is, Methos. I need you sober for this."

I snatch my hand away and swing the fridge open. "And _I_ need not to go absolutely crazy while you pick apart my mind." Damn the woman! She actually puts her body between me and what I'm after. "Cassandra, you presume too much."

"Old man, if you do not trust me to protect you, then this is a pointless exercise." She looks at me with irritating, if commendable calmness.

"Fine, it's pointless. I'll be off then." Joe coughs and I glare at him. "You just want more material for your damn journals," I sneer.

"None of this is being recorded anywhere except in my head, Methos. I promised you that. So far as the Watchers are concerned, I'm on indefinite leave."

Now that is a surprise. "So how are you getting all the information you have?"

"You're not the only person who knows how to hack the Watcher records, you old fool," he says tartly, clearly at the end of his patience. "I don't get you, Methos. People wanting to kill you is part of every Immortal's existence. Mac's even tried for your head before, so you said. So why are you a wreck this time?"

 _Why, indeed._ "Perhaps I'm not used to people professing they love me one minute, and trying to take my head the next."

 _Bullshit,_ I think, and so does Joe from his expression. Cassandra intervenes. "We won't find the answer to your question, Mr Dawson, by arguing about it. Methos doesn't know."

I turn on her. "And you do?"

She remains calm. "I think I can find it. But only if you can tell me what you really saw when you last met with Duncan."

I wave at her dismissively. "Oh go ahead. It's you two who'll have to live with the meltdown, not me."

"Yeah, right, as usual," Joe mutters, but I ignore him.

"What do you want me to do? Lie on the bed?"

I'm being sarcastic, but she nods. "That might help, certainly, if you won't feel too vulnerable. Just make yourself comfortable, take off your coat and your sword ...."

"The sword stays," I grate out.

"No, pal, the sword goes or we do this with you tied up," Joe says emphatically. "I ain't dealing with some psyched out sword-waving maniac."

"Charming." I draw my sword out and put it ostentatiously on the ground beside the bed. "You two are asking a lot, you know that."

Cassandra takes my hands – I so wish she would stop doing that. "Yes, we know, Methos, though I think this will help you too."

"That makes me feel so much better, of course." I fling myself down on the bed and glare at her. Joe hides a grin.

"You don't look that comfortable, you know," she says. "Why don't you just stretch out as if you were about to have a nap. Take your shoes off, that sort of thing."

"Oh, I don't usually bother now that I don't have anyone to do that sort of thing for me." She stiffens, and her lack of reaction tells me to re-examine what I said. "Oh, God – I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Cassandra, I was joking."

She sits down, her posture and expression all formality. I've hurt her and I'd promised never to do that again. I sit up and get off the bed, to come and kneel beside her. I take _her_ hand. "I give you my word, I did not mean any insult," I say in a low voice.

She touches my face. "Forgiven, Methos. Go and lie down again."

Ashamed at being such a pig, I take off my coat and shoes, loosen my belt a little, and lie down again. "I'm ready," I say. I glance at Joe. "You must protect her from me, whatever happens, Joe."

He nods. "I promise."

And so we begin.

* * *

The things I do for you, MacLeod, I think, as I get ready to keep the peace while Cassandra does her mumbo jumbo on Methos. The old guy is skittish as hell, but I can't really blame him – hell, I wouldn't want missy making free with my head either, and Methos was always careful even before all this. Immortals are paranoid about their own kind, and with good reason – and this woman used to claim to hate his guts. They both say things have changed, but still....

She pulls her chair over to beside the bed. Methos is trying to be cool, I can tell, but he doesn't look relaxed. I don't think he's afraid of her so much as himself, and if what she's about to do helps him, then that'll be one good thing to come from this mess. She folds her hands in her lap. "Close your eyes, Methos," she says and he obeys. "Are you comfortable?"

"Comfortable enough."

"I want you to do a breathing exercise with me ...."

So far, what she's doing is nothing too weird, and as Methos follows her instructions, I can see his body subtly shift as he loses the tension. In a way, even with the shaved head and the beard, just that change makes him more like the man I remember, who was always so laid back he was almost horizontal. Mac is the one I think of as being the uptight one.

"Okay, Methos, do you feel relaxed?" she asks.

"Yes, " he breathes, slurring the word ever so slightly. Damn me if he isn't half asleep. Cassandra looks at me and smiles a little, which reassures me. She looks fond, not calculating. Like her kid just did a clever trick.

She leans a little closer. "Methos, why do you take the pills?"

"Dreams. Bad, bad dreams."

"What are the nightmares about?"

Even from where I sit, I can see him screwing up his face. "Don't 'member," he says after a very long time thinking.

"Do you dream about Duncan?"

Another long pause, which surprises me. "No," he says finally.

"What about Joe?"

"No...oo, no." He seems more sure about that.

I can tell she's surprised about this. "Can you think of anything you see in your dreams. Anything? Good or bad?"

His face twists as if he's in pain, and he rubs his chest a little. "Sorry," he says.

She pulls a face. Onto Plan B, is my guess. "Tell me what happened in May. When you went to America."

He sighs, then begins to tell her more or less what he told me. He'd got a call from Mac, inviting him to come to the island, and when he got there, he was attacked. "How did you get away?" she asks, which is what I want to know.

"Don't know." Again he rubs his chest, and he grimaces. "Hurts, Cassandra."

"What hurts, Methos?"

"This." 

She puts her hand over the one he has on his chest and together they rub it. After a little bit, she says, "Methos, I want you to listen to me. The pain you're feeling isn't happening to you. I want you to think of it as being outside your body. It doesn't touch you, and it doesn't bother you." Her voice got really strange just then, and I think I just got my first taste of the power that she has. Methos' face goes lax and his hand stops moving. "Does it hurt now?"

"No," he says in a small voice. "But I don't like this."

"I know," she says with more gentleness than I thought I would ever hear from her. "It won't take too long, I promise."

She's still holding his hand. "I need you to tell me what happened. Why are you so sure it's Duncan and Joe?"

He screws up his face in concentration, making him look very young despite the horrible hair-don't and the skinniness. "Looked like them," he says. He doesn't sound completely convinced and she jumps on that.

"Are you sure? What about their voices?" I see him twitch, as if he's been surprised. "Listen, Methos. The one who looks like Duncan is speaking to you. Do you recognise the voice?" She's doing it again, using that trick. She continues to gently encourage him to listen to what he had heard all those months ago, while he tries. It's painful to watch.

"I can't!" he bursts out. "I don't remember!"

"You do," she says calmly, stroking his hand. "Something is stopping you. I want you to try something. What do you see when you try to hear the voices?"

 _Huh?_ I nearly say it out loud, but again, Methos seems to just be concentrating. "Red," he said quietly.

"Red what?" Cassandra asked, as puzzled as I am.

He waves his hand about, trying to describe it. "Fog, mist. I can't see through it."

I can't hold back the gasp. "Ahriman," I whisper. Mac said a red mist was his warning that Ahriman was about.

Cassandra doesn't understand, but she knows I see it as significant, and pushes. "Listen to me, Methos. The mist is thinning. You can see shapes, start to hear sounds. What can you hear?"

He listens to the sounds in his memory, and then scrunches up his face and puts his hand to his ear. "No," he protests. "Wait ...stop."

"What is it, Methos? Is it Duncan's voice? Joe's?"

"No – something ... I can see it now...coming ...."

She leans forward, intent on his words. "The mist is disappearing fast, Methos. Soon the air will be clear. You can hear it coming. You can see it. What do you see?"

He turns his head as if to see better, even though his eyes are tightly shut. "It's ... God! Get it away!" He suddenly yells – no, screams, grabbing his head as if he's in mortal agony. His eyes snap open, but I can tell he's not really seeing us or the room. He rolls off the bed, reaching for the sword he's no longer carrying (thank God), then he crouches down by the wall, his arms warding off some invisible attack, all the time keeping up this terrified yelling. "Keep it away from me!" he's screaming over and over, almost gibbering. His body jerks over and over, as if he is being struck, and he grunts and yells in pain. Then he tears at his face and his body as if he's burning, like acid has been thrown on him or something. I almost expect him to start bleeding from wounds that aren't there.

"Methos!" Cassandra shouts, trying to break through his terror. I don't think he heard her at all, he doesn't let up. I look at the door, worried that any minute the manager is going to burst through the door and demand to know that the hell is going on. Cassandra is more worried about the Immortal now curled up into a ball on the floor. He's stopped yelling and now is making this horrible whimpering. I think I preferred the yelling.

She kneels down beside him and begins to stroke his hair, speaking quietly in a language I don't even recognise, let alone understand. I feel like a fifth wheel – no way can I get down on the floor with them – but there is one thing I can do. I get up and pick up Methos' coat and search the pockets for the pill bottle he was going for earlier. Got it. I fetch some water from the bathroom, and when I get back, Cassandra has her arms around Methos, who is sitting up and keening quietly. "It wasn't him, wasn't him," he's saying over and over.

What the hell have we done to him? Cassandra looks up and sees what I have in my hand. She takes the pills from me. "Methos, I need you to open your eyes." He resists and she has to coax him – he's too upset to think clearly. She manages to put two of the pills into his hand, and he raises them to his lips, shaking so badly he has trouble getting the pills into his mouth. She takes the water from me, but doesn't risk trying to get him to hold it. Even with her help, he spills more than he swallows.

She gives me the glass back and motions me away, so I go and sit down again. It seems to take forever for her to get him to stop shaking and to relax a little, but then all of a sudden he just slumps sideways. She lowers him down, then fetches a pillow from the bed and a spare blanket, arranging them under his head and around his body with care.

She puts a finger to her lips and waves me to come out of the room with her, closing the door behind her with the softest click. "What the hell," I ask, "was all that?"

"It's what I suspected. Something or someone was stopping him remembering what he actually saw. In his conscious mind, he could only recall what he was supposed to – that you and Duncan attacked him. But in his unconscious mind, in his sleep, the truth is emerging and causing him nightmares. He was no more able to remember the nightmares than the attack itself."

"But what did he see?" I'm half-afraid of the answer, but we still need to have it.

"I don't know, except that I know that Methos doesn't scare easily, and whatever he saw terrified him. I would say it wasn't Duncan, that's for sure," she says dryly. "I think the reason he has been so persistently attacked is that he can see this creature for what it is. Perhaps he is the only one who can. That's why he's a threat."

This is all damn weird. "But will he remember what he saw now?"

She shrugs. "Not sure. But having broken down the illusion once, it will be easier to do it again, and again, until he can see it without difficulty."

"Unless we've just driven him insane by showing it to him."

She laughs, surprisingly. "He's tougher than he looks, Dawson."

Personally, I'm not so sure. I'm still not convinced she's a hundred percent on his side in this, but she was pretty gentle with him, so I guess I'll play it her way for now.

She looks at her watch. "I should imagine he will sleep for several hours. He looked tired even before this. Why don't you go back home? I'll call you when he wakes up."

I don't like it. "What if he's nuts when he comes to? Mac would kill me if anything happened to you."

She grins. "Mr Dawson, I'm not a helpless slave any more. I can pretty much make Methos do anything I want – not," she adds, seeing my expression, "that I intend to abuse that power. Shona would kill _me_ if anything happens to her 'uncle'."

I nod. I still don't like it, but she can make me do her will as easily as she can Methos, so there's not a lot of point in arguing with her.

* * *

It's nearly eight when she calls to tell me he's awake, and to ask if I can come back to the hotel, stopping in at Methos' hotel to collect his bags and bringing Landry's journal with me. Seems he's going to be sharing Cassandra's room for a few days. I agree, even if my eyebrows damn near disappear off the top of my head with surprise. If an Immortal fathering a baby is the most unbelievable thing I've ever heard of, Cassandra and Methos sleeping together has to be the second most incredible.

My bar help ain't too happy that I'm disappearing again, but I promise to make it up to him later. I jump a cab to the hotel where they have Methos' stuff ready for him, and then I take the cab across town to Cassandra's hotel. Methos is sitting in the armchair. I know he's been asleep all afternoon, but he looks exhausted. Almost ill, if that was possible. He smiles guiltily at me. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"And why not?"

He gestures at me, then touches his face at the same spot where there's a bruise on mine. Not much of one – never did bruise easily. It hurts a lot worse than it looks, but I'm not going to tell him that. "I should have realised you would never ... Joe, I'm sorry."

Methos doesn't apologise easily – he doesn't really believe in the concept, he told me once, but I know why he has to say this, and I know that what I say back will mean a lot to him. "Methos, I would _never_ hurt you, in any way. Get that?"

"Yes, I know ...."

"But," I say, raising my hand to stop him, "I know how you were tricked into thinking that. So you don't need to apologise. If I'd done what you thought I had, you were within your rights. So, friends?"

He gets up and walks over, clasping my outstretched hand eagerly. "Yes, friends. I missed you."

"Stop, you're making me sick now." He grins and looks over to Cassandra, who's been watching all this in silence. She smiles a little too. "Have you guys eaten?"

"No," she says. "We were going to order room service. We think that perhaps it might be a good idea for Methos to lay low while I continue to undo the mental blocks. He's vulnerable just now."

"And she can keep watch over me as I sleep, make sure I don't go wandering off and hurt anyone," Methos adds.

I clear my throat, embarrassed at my earlier suspicions, and he smiles. "You have the dirtiest mind, Dawson," he says.

Cassandra realises what we're talking about, blushes and then glares at the two of us. "I haven't sunk _that_ low, thank you, and I should never be that desperate."

Methos clasps his chest. "Rejected, once more."

"Shut up," she snaps, and he lays off. I can't tell if she's really annoyed or just playing. I really can't figure this pair at all.

I go sit in the armchair, Methos sits on one of the beds. "Why don't you guys go ahead and order room service, and then tell me what you're planning."

Cassandra orders a meal for three – can't say I care much what they get, I'm not that hungry – and then Methos pours me a Scotch from the minibar. He begins. "Cassandra thinks it will be possible to remove the blocks in my minds to the point where I can identify this ... whatever it is ...."

"Ahriman?" I prompt.

"Hardly," he says, pulling a face. "Is that Landry's book?" he asks, standing and reaching for the briefcase I brought with me. He pulls it out. "Jesus, what a mess. What happened to it?"

"Mac. Threw it in the fireplace then pulled it out again."

He raises an eyebrow at that and then opens the book. Cassandra excuses herself to have a shower while Methos reads intently. The food arrives just as Cassandra comes back out, dressed in a bath robe, and we two concentrate on eating. Methos picks at a few things but his attention is entirely on the journal. When she's done, Cassandra goes to look over his shoulder. He flicks through a couple more pages, and passes the book to her with a look of disgust. "The man was insane, you do realise that. What a load of utter tripe." He picks up his plate and eats one of the sandwiches in three huge bites. He must have been hungry.

That's the last thing I was expecting him to say. "But he was right about Mac being the Champion, wasn't he?"

Methos wipes crumbs away from his lap, and gestures at Cassandra. "This is your thing, you explain it."

I swear she looks embarrassed. "I think – I suspect ... I was wrong about that, Joe."

"You what?" I yell. "Look, even Landry says it - here, see?"

I find the well-thumbed pages which identify MacLeod. They both look at the pages, and then at each other. Methos sighs. "Joe, Landry was _nuts_. I mean, just look at this crap. He's getting his mythology all mixed up, he's using three or four different derivative sources referring to the same thing but talking about them as if they all independently verify his assumptions. And, oh God, Cassandra, did you see this?" He points at something on the page and she reads it, before laughing. "It's absurd. No wonder he wasn't taken seriously. No wonder you and Mac couldn't make any sense of it. It's part ranting, part fantasy. A couple of real facts, but mostly," he slams the book shut, "it's worthless."

He's beginning to piss me off. "You can tell all that from a ten minute read? Pardon me for thinking something that big might be worth you looking at properly." I look at Cassandra. "And what's all this bull about Mac not being the Champion?"

She twists her hands. "I think I misread the prophecy, Joe. It's possible that Duncan wasn't meant to defeat Ahriman after all. But I _do_ think that he has been singled out in all this, perhaps because he _is_ a champion – potent, powerful...."

"The One," Methos murmurs.

"Yes," she says. "Very likely. Isn't that what all you Watchers think?"

"I guess so," I admit reluctantly. Not something you like to say to other Immortals. 

"He is the best of us," Methos says. "Perhaps this...whatever it is ...is attracted to that, the same as we are."

"Perhaps it likes to destroy the finest things too," Cassandra adds. "This thing has gone to extraordinary lengths to get Duncan away from those who love and support him, and to place him as protector over the woman and her offspring. I doubt there is a benign reason for this. And I think the time he will be at most risk is...."

"....when the child is born," Methos whispers, finishing her sentence. "Like some damn parasite with a host waiting for the young to feed."

It's melodramatic, but after what I saw last year, I don't think he's exaggerating. "So what do we do?" I ask. "Get Mac away from her?"

"Kill the woman and destroy what is inside her," Cassandra says, shocking me with her harshness.

"MacLeod will never permit that," Methos shoots back. "After all, that's what he's there for – to stop that happening."

"The only one who can do this is you, Methos," Cassandra says, and I get the impression from his expression that they've already talked about this and he's not happy. "You're the only one who can see things for what they really are, the only one who is strong enough to overcome Duncan."

"You mean, the only one nobody would miss if I lose my head," he says bitterly. "Don't I get a say in this? I might – _might_ , I say – be able to beat Mac on my best day, if he's not having _his_ best day. Even suppose I was willing to kill him, which I'm not, how exactly do I kill it? I was pretty defenceless against it last time. If Mac can't destroy it, I don't see how I can."

He folds his arms and gets a stubborn look on his face which is actually an improvement on the dead expression he was wearing when I turned up in Slovakia, but means we're in for a tough argument. "You'll have to convince Mac to help you," I say. "You're right, can't do it on your own."

"Sure thing, Joe. I'll just wander over to the island to see my old lover – who, by the way, thinks I skipped town on him, and you both know what a forgiving soul MacLeod is about betrayal by friends," he glares at us both, "and then I say to my old lover, sorry old chap, but this woman you love and adore is carrying a monster around in her guts, and we're pretty sure that the only way to save the world is to kill the person you love and adore and what also what possibly – just possibly – could be your own child." He shakes his head. "Find someone else, because I'm not going to commit suicide for no good at all." He closes his eyes. "For all any of us know, this is how new Immortals are made."

I look at Cassandra. "Do you think that's possible?"

Methos opens his eyes and glares at me. "Why the hell would she know, when I don't? Five thousand years, ring a bell with anyone?"

"Hush," Cassandra says, and his dirty look transfers to her. "For heaven's sake, man, do you know everything about us?"

"Make your mind up, _woman_ ," he says snidely. "Is Tessa Noel carrying a baby Immortal or a monster? Because if I'm standing over it with a bloody sword in my hand and a rampaging Highlander about to take his vengeance, 'oops, got that wrong' isn't really going to cut it, is it."

He rubs his forehead as if he has a headache, which he probably does, and I remember that he's had a hell of a day. "Folks, why don't you all get some sleep. Cassandra, you can keep working on Methos' head for a few days – we have that, I guess – and we can talk about what we do later. No point in getting worked up when we're all tired, right?"

Methos sighs. "You're quite right, Mr Dawson," Cassandra agrees. "Call tomorrow, and we can discuss this further. I'd also like to see all the information you have on Tessa Noel, and whatever you can tell us about what happened with Duncan last year. You have your diaries?"

"Yeah, I do." And not just the official ones, either, even though we ain't suppose to keep them. "Okay, I'll say good night. Get some rest, Methos."

He waves a hand, his eyes closed again. Hope Cassandra is the type of Immortal who carries painkillers.

* * *

"Headache," she says. A statement not a question. She sits down on the bed near me.

"Yes, but I'll live. " I open my eyes. "I can't do this on my own." She looks down at her hands. "You will have to come with me."

"Yes," she says quietly. "I know."

"I won't harm Mac, and I know you won't. Even if you could, I won't let you."

"Of course not."

"So how do we deal with this?"

She looks as tired as me, and she hasn't had a nap, as I have. "I don't know, Methos. But this thing must think that we hold some answers or it wouldn't have removed us from the scene before."

"Your premonitions – Shona's ...." I stop. Shona isn't her biological daughter, there can't be a connection. "Did you see something?"

She shakes her head. "I don't _think_ so. I have to admit when it comes to you, my perceptions are often distorted."

I could make a stupid joke at this point, but this is too important to fuck about with. "Because of our history? Or something else."

"I don't know. But Shona felt something and she doesn't share our history."

"She's not a witch either."

She frowns – she doesn't like that term, but I'm sorry, that's what she is. More than a healer, more than a Wiccan. I'm not sure how much of her power is real and how much illusion but she can do things denied to the rest of us. "Shona is...special." She smiles suddenly. "But I would say that, wouldn't I?"

"Yes, but she is. Gifted, intelligent. But is there more?"

"I don't know." Now I've heard that phrase more times from Cassandra in a day than I have done in all the time we've known each other. "It might be you, not her. Because of your feelings towards her."

I sigh and rub at my face. All I want to do is go to sleep and wake up safe and happy in Glenfinnan with Mac.... No, whatever happens, that dream is over. "Terrific – so now you're saying that _my_ amazing abilities are affecting those around me. Cassandra, I'm just a guy."

"No, Methos, you were never that. If you have chosen to ignore or abuse your gifts it doesn't take away from what you are. You haven't gotten to be your age by luck and determination alone, I'm sure of it."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," I snap. "I'm just very, very good at ducking and weaving and planning. And I run away from danger, unlike a certain Scot of our mutual acquaintance."

"If you choose to believe that, Methos, there is nothing I can do to convince you, but you do have something. And that something is the only thing that can save Duncan."

"Only with your help. Cassandra, if I kill his child – if I kill his woman – justly or unjustly, it will destroy him as surely as if I took his head." _And I can't do that_. "Are we sure that this thing would be so terrible?"

She stares at me. "After Lazlo, after the island, you can ask that?"

"The world is full or dark and evil things. What's one more?"

"And if it kills Duncan in its birthing?"

It keeps coming back to that. Not the world, that was a MacLeod concern. To the individual, who is more precious to me – to both of us – than our own selves. "Maybe he'll feel it would be kinder to kill him, if we succeed."

She doesn't have an answer for that. "Do you want something for the pain?"

That startles me. "What are you offering? Don't tell me you carry aspirin?"

She smiles, although it's clearly an effort. "I don't. You can't give it to children under twelve. And somehow I doubt paracetemol would be much proof against an Immortal headache. I was going to suggest an ice pack or meditation, actually."

"No, it's okay. Mac...." _Used to give me a massage_ , I almost said. There were all sorts of reasons why that would be an incredibly stupid thing to say just now. "Never mind. Let's sleep, and then you give my head an overhaul tomorrow."

"What, again?" she grins. I still find it strange when she relaxes enough to do that, but in a nice way. She turns serious. "Methos, this is going to hurt."

"But I'll live, right?" I say lightly.

"I certainly hope so." 

I never can tell when Cassandra's joking.

* * *

Three weeks later, sitting in a plane next to her, I'm thinking of the degree of understatement in that pronouncement. The only comforting ... no, that's entirely the wrong word ... the only affirming thing in what I – we – have been going through in the last few weeks is that it does prove that whatever it is that has ensnared Mac is powerful and malignant. It had taken a week of Cassandra poking and probing at my subconscious – even without the most recently booby traps, that was never going to be delightful – before I could summon the images, which had reduced me to a terrror-sodden wreck on our first attempt, without throwing up. Even then, we could only work together for a hour or so before I had to call a halt, my body so wracked with pain and my mind in so much turmoil that I was unable to continue. That improved as the blocks and wards placed in my mind began to crumble. We realised that my long-standing headaches, which had worsened since I had been attacked on the island by 'Duncan', were part of the same process. Cassandra, however, was unable to dismantle that last protection. I was just going to have to live with them.

Now we are off to confront MacLeod, and if headaches are the worst problem I have to face, I'll be more fortunate than I could possibly deserve. At least the nightmares are largely gone, and although my companion is carrying the tranquillisers in case she needs to get me back from off the ceiling again, I don't need them to sleep. Not this last week, anyway.

We're not ready for this, but we're running out of time. By Joe's reckoning, Tessa Noel has been pregnant for just under eight months. Whatever has implanted her is not likely to continue this farce past the term of a normal pregnancy, and might even up the pace. We have to assume it knows what we are planning. Already we could be too late. 

Cassandra does not want to be here, and that, I can understand. She has other people depending on her, other commitments. I have no one. If I died tomorrow, Joe would grieve, but would not be bowed down. Shona would be sad, if Cassandra told her – most likely she would not. We've agreed that Cassandra has more to lose than I do. More than that, I vowed long ago she would not suffer further at my hands, and that I would protect her. She is coming with me because I can't do this entirely on my own. But short of risking Mac, I will do what I can to keep her safe.

We're not even sure what we're going to do. Joe bounced back and forth between urging us to hurry and to do something, and wringing his hands about the possibility that we would be killed and Mac still would be lost. Cassandra is certain that won't happen. "Methos, if it wanted you dead, you'd be dead. It doesn't want Duncan to have your Quickening. It would give him the strength to defeat this thing."

I can see her reasoning, but I'm not convinced enough by it to be sanguine. What I do know is that it's likely to come down to Mac's life or my own. Somewhere between now and when we arrive in Seacouver, I have to decide what I will do when it does.

Joe isn't coming with us. I was adamant about that. This thing has left him alone for the last year or so. I have no intention of drawing its attention to him by dragging him into a confrontation with Mac. I damn near killed him when he turned up in Slovakia – I would not permit him to be risked again. Of all of us, he has the most to lose. Mortal life may be short, but it is all the more precious for that.

I may not have any sedatives in my system, but I'm taking full advantage of the free booze in flight. Cassandra appears to be asleep, but I know she is not. After sharing her room for three weeks, and the two months' forced confinement together before that, I've come to know her breathing patterns almost as well as Mac's. "You should have a drink," I say quietly.

She doesn't even bother opening her eyes. "Is that your answer for everything?"

"To some things, yes. When there's nothing else that can be done, and I'm tense and worried as hell. You'd prefer me to attack someone?"

"I'd _prefer_ you practiced your mental exercises, actually."

"Bugger that – I'm tired and I have a headache, and I don't appreciate being nannied," I snap. She opens her eyes then and looks at me with amusement. "Indulge me, you damn harridan."

"Never, you old goat." She touches my hand – at least it no longer makes me flinch. "Alcohol really won't help. The tranquilisers are better than that."

I signal to a steward, and give him the remains of my whiskey, asking for a tomato juice instead. "There, happy?"

"Not until this is over."

On that, we are agreed.

Our resources are meagre indeed. She is hoping Mac is still susceptible to the Voice and she has patiently drilled me in how to listen to the tones of speech, the edges of illusion, to see the reality underneath, but unless we can persuade MacLeod to cooperate, or we are incredibly lucky in some other way, we have no hope of this – whatever 'this' is – succeeding.

The flight arrives mid-afternoon. The island is a good three hours' drive from Seacouver, and with the deep winter on us, it's not a good idea to attempt to go up there before nightfall. We book a room – yes, a room together, we're not risking an attack on one of us without the other being there for protection – and try to get some rest. One way or another, it's going to be a long day tomorrow.

* * *

Joe's friend , Ernie, the current proprietor of 'Joe's', drives us up to the island, reasoning that we surely didn't want to hire a car only to leave it sitting on the mainland for a week or more. That doesn't bother me, actually, but he can report to Joe that we arrived safe and well, and it is certainly convenient. 

We arrive at the lakeshore village just after noon, and collect a motorised dinghy, clearly the typical mode of transport around here. Fortunately the lake rarely freezes – I don't like boats, but I _really_ don't like snowmobiles or skis. Cassandra pilots the little craft across a lake that is choppy and dull grey under leaden skies that threaten more snow.

MacLeod is waiting for us, of course, and however much I prepared myself for this moment, I feel my gut tighten in a manner entirely beyond my control, no matter how many goddamn mental exercises I perform. "Is it him?" Cassandra murmurs.

"We're too far away," I lie. The truth is that the first sight of Mac in over a year has knocked me for six and I'm struggling to recover equilibrium. I remember enough to plaster my most innocent 'Adam Pierson' look on my face, which won't fool Mac for more than a second but perhaps long enough for me to tell if he _is_ Duncan MacLeod. 

"Methos?" Mac is incredulous, and I am prepared for that as well. He stands back as we beach the boat. "Cassandra? What you doing here?"

She takes over, thank God. "Dawson told us about Tessa, Duncan. We've come to see how you are getting on."

He looks back and forth between us, and his incredulity and perhaps a growing anger are clear enough. I take the few precious seconds I need to look – really look – and confirm he is who he appears to be. Realising that, I'm vaguely surprised that my bodily tension doesn't lessen at all. "Methos, where have you been? Are you here to cause trouble?" Oh yes, he's angry, and for a moment I can't remember why. _I'm_ the one who should be pissed off. Except I don't have to be, and he thinks I left _him_. Think fast, Methos.

"Look, Mac, it's a long story and it's fucking freezing. Can we continue this inside?" His eyes flicker towards the cabin. I can read his thoughts as clearly as if he's spoken them. His woman is in there, and what he thinks is his child. He doesn't know if we're a threat, and he doesn't want to risk his family. "I'm not here to hurt either of you. We just want to help." Well, the last part is true. It's just not what he'll think it means. "Can we go into the house?" 

His habit of hospitality snaps into place. "Sure, come on in. You, uh, have bags?"

"Just a pack each," I tell him. He's already approached the boat and reached in for the bags. Our hands collide, and I flinch back.

"Sorry," I say sincerely at his puzzled look. He moves back and leaves me to pick things up. His eyes are wary, and I know he would rather we continued this right here, right now, but the snow has started again. It really is bloody freezing. Besides, we can't...deal ... with Tessa Noel until we see her.

He leads the way up the shore to the cabin from which smoke is emerging in white plumes. I hope the fireplace isn't the only heating ... what the fuck am I thinking? Who cares if it's cold? In a very short time the temperature will be the very last thing on anyone's mind.

"It's him?" Cassandra whispers.

"Yes," I say briefly. Nothing more. We planned for this much, at least. 

A young, very beautiful woman muffled in a heavy coat comes out of the cabin and stands on the porch. "Duncan?" she says in a pleasant, French-accented voice. Tessa Noel. God. Photos don't do her justice. I stand still and concentrate on her, certain that any second I will see her form shimmer and change into a monstrosity, but she stubbornly continues to be an attractive, puzzled and very pregnant woman, wondering who the hell these strangers are coming to this godforsaken refuge.

Mac introduces us. "Tessa, these are friends. Uh ... Adam and Cassandra. I told you about them, remember?"

Her face relaxes. "Oh, yes, of course. Welcome. Come in, won't you?"

The irony almost makes me want to laugh. She's playing the little hausfrau and we've come to ruin her life. Or end it. But try as I might, I cannot conjure anything before me but a very human, very alive person. And this, we haven't planned for.

* * *

The cold wind whisks us in and the awkwardness of our unannounced arrival is covered over by the bustle of getting us de-iced and de-frosted. Mac busies himself taking our bags and putting water onto boil. Tessa stands back, clearly uncertain, and lets her man take charge. Cassandra keeps giving me sharp looks but I can't tell her what I can see, so she'll have to wait. I pull my woolly hat off, and that brings an outburst from Mac. "What the hell have you done to yourself, M ...Adam?"

I'd shaved off the beard, and my hair is now half-inch long stubble, but I'm aware I still look rather concentration-campish. "Latest fashion," I say lightly.

That, it seems, is enough banter for him. "Do you want to explain what you're doing here?" he asks, handing us both coffee and settling himself down on the sofa next to Tessa.

"Duncan, don't be so rude," Tessa chides. "They're old friends, you said that, and they've come a long way to see us."

Despite her reproof, she is wary. Clearly no fool. He looks at her and squeezes her hand. She smiles, and I can see all at once exactly what Mac saw – sees – in her. She has a glow which pregnancy can only have enhanced. She is very, very pregnant, and I suspect Joe may have underestimated how far along she is.

"I'm sorry, love," – and I try not to show how it hurts to hear him say that to her – "it's just unexpected. Did Joe say we needed you? And where have you been, Adam."

"Here and there. There, mostly. It's a long story," I warn, and he seems to be aware that it has to be for his ears only, because he doesn't push. "Things have certainly changed for you."

"Joe told you?" he asks, and I detect a slight hardening of his tone. "He wouldn't believe me when I said I was the father."

Tessa suddenly picks up on the clues. "Duncan, are your friends ... like you?"

"Yes, they are. But they're not after my head, you don't have to worry."

I know he's saying that as much for us as for her. "Of course not, Mac. If I were, I'd hardly come to Holy ground, now, would I?"

Beside me, Cassandra nods. "We have not come to harm you, Duncan." I hope he doesn't connect the dots and realise her statement doesn't exclude harming his woman.

"But you still haven't said _why_ you've come," he persists.

I decide telling the truth – as much as I dare – is all that will suffice here. "Joe was worried because he thought Ahriman was involved."

To my surprise, Mac isn't fazed. "Of course he is – how else do you explain Tessa coming back?"

"And this doesn't bother you?" Cassandra asks. I can hear the surprise in her question.

"Look, it's simple, don't you see? I defeated Ahriman, and I got my dearest wish as a reward." 

Shit, that hurt. _Why don't you just cut my heart out while you're at it, MacLeod_ , I nearly shout. I have to dig my nails into my thighs to regain some control over my emotions. He doesn't even seem to have noticed the effect his words have on me. "And the child? Is everything going well?" I ask, contriving to keep my voice normal and the enquiry apparently resulting from concern for her.

"He's fine," Tessa says, smiling. "All completely normal. It's a miracle."

"He? You know the sex?"

"We wanted to know," Mac says, squeezing her hand again. His expression turns hard. "You better not be here to tell me some bullshit about how I can't be his father, Adam. Joe has no business slandering Tessa like that."

"Calm down, Mac. Joe's naturally sceptical, but then he hasn't lived as long as you or I, has he?" Now I really am winging it – we never expected to have to discuss this with Mac. By this stage, Cassandra and I both thought swords would be involved.

"Then you believe me? You really think that the child is mine?"

Goddamn it. Much as he has hurt me since I arrived, it's nothing to hearing that desperate belief, that raw need in his voice. Now I have to lie. Later, I will have to break his heart. "If Tessa can return from the dead, then yes, Mac, you can make her pregnant."

I can sense Cassandra tense every so slightly. I hope she will trust me to keep up her end of the story. It works, for Mac smiles. "So, were you hoping to be godparents?"

I force a smile onto my own face. "I think that might entail lightning bolts, actually. No, we were just worried about you, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. What do you do for medical care? Stuff Tessa into a boat?"

"Yes, he does. It's all right, Adam," she says, seeing my horrified expression – faked – "in a week, we're going across to the mainland to stay with friends until the baby is born. We don't want to risk travelling that close to the birth."

"When are you due?"

"Oh, not for another month," she assures me. "I know, I'm so huge, but the doctor says it's just the way the baby is lying."

I wonder how the thing is convincing doctors and ultrasound machines that there is a human child inside this innocent woman. Could it possibly be that there really is?

"So, Adam," Mac asks. "How long were you and Cassandra planning on staying? We only have the one other room, it might get a bit crowded."

"In light of what Tessa said, I was going to ask if we could stay until you up sticks. And Cassandra and I can share a room." It was something we had briefly discussed, not expecting it to come up, but the relief in Mac's eyes – _is that the end of guilt, love_ r? I ask him snidely inside my head – is obvious.

"You and Cassandra? That's great, you two!" he says, a little too enthusiastically. "Of course you can stay. How long have you been together?"

Playing the game, I take Cassandra's hand, not daring to look her in the face. "Not long, just a few weeks. We've only been actually living together for three."

"Congratulations," Tessa says gravely. "You make a lovely couple."

"Thank you," Cassandra says, and I'm surprised she can sound so normal. "You know how good Adam is with my daughter, after all, Duncan."

"You have a daughter? How old is she?" Tessa asks enthusiastically. 

I take that as my cue to stand. "Mac, why don't we leave the ladies to get acquainted while you show me the room?"

I collect our bags and he leads me upstairs. It's a good deal colder up in the small room he takes me into and he immediately sets to, lighting a fire in the fireplace. "No central heating?" I ask.

"No. Methos, where did you go? I searched everywhere for you. Why the hell did you leave like that? And what's going on with you and Cassandra? Are you here because of me being with Tessa?"

So he isn't as blissed out and unaware as I thought. Again, the truth seems the best option. "Do you want to sit? You make me think you wish you had the katana in your hand."

He frowns, but sits on the room's only chair. I take up position on the bed. As calmly as I can, I tell him exactly what I thought had happened to me in May, and how Joe found me, and what he had told me to convince me I was mistaken. "You thought I'd tried to kill you? How the hell could you believe that, Methos?"

I shrug. "I guess I flipped out."

He stands, clearly unable to sit still. "All those months, worrying myself sick over you. And all that time, you hated me?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. But you had other things to occupy you, I see," and I am completely unable to keep all the sarcasm out of my voice.

"You were gone, Methos," he says defensively. "And you can't imagine what it feels like to have Tessa back. She is the greatest love I've ever had."

I struggle to stay cool and collected. Jealousy won't help. "I can imagine, actually. If Alexa were returned to me, I know how that would feel." _Only I never loved any one more than you, Mac._

"So you understand? You're not jealous? But of course, you've got together with Cassandra, that must help."

"She's been wonderful," I say with complete honesty. He's so desperate to convince himself that all is turning out for the best, I don't think he'll examine my 'relationship' too deeply, unless I give him cause. "But Joe is worried, and wouldn't give me any peace until I promised to come out here to see you for myself. He figures he's not welcome."

Mac's face grows dark. "He insulted Tessa, Methos. Implied she was sleeping around on me. You can tell him that when he apologises, and accepts my son, he can come visit."

 _Oh, Mac._ Poor, deluded Highlander. "I think he'll understand that," I soothe. "Joe – all of us – only want you to be happy. Even if...even if my feelings have changed...." _Liar_. "I still care about you, Duncan. I only want the best for you."

He walks over to me, and before I can stop him, he cups my face in his hand. "Methos, I still love you. As.... You'll always be my dearest friend. But you have to understand what this all means to me."

 _Shit._ I don't want him to see what this is doing to me, so I force a smile on my face. "Of course, I understand, Mac. Things have changed in a way neither of us can predict. It wasn't your fault I left, and I know what Tessa means to you."

I gently pull his hand away from my face. He sits next to me. "I searched everywhere for you. Where did you go? I thought I was going to go mad, worrying."

I pat his hand. "I'm sorry, I really am."

His eyes are full of nothing but affection and concern, and I think that hurts worst of all. Knowing that he still cares. That if it weren't for Tessa .... "Are you well?" He traces a finger down my cheek. "You're so damn thin again."

"I'm okay. Things were rough for a while. I'm glad Joe found me. Cassandra has been wonderful." All true, but I know how he will take it.

"I'm glad, Methos. You deserve to be happy."

We sit staring at each other for a moment until he clears his throat. "We better go down and see how our ladies are getting on," I say with hardly a hint of a tremor in my voice.

"Yeah," he says. Then he utterly shocks me by leaning over and kissing my cheek. "I will always want you in my life, Methos."

 _Wanna bet_? my snide inner voice asks. I pat his hand again and stand up before I make a fool of myself. "That means a lot to me, Mac. Um, we brought supplies, we didn't want to be a burden."

"Right," he says, now all business, looking at his watch. "We should make lunch – Tessa's appetite is huge these days."

"I expect it is," I say, already heading for the door.

In the living room, Cassandra and Tessa are talking animatedly about children and babies and I wonder if Cassandra has forgotten why we're here. Of course, it makes sense not to antagonise our hosts, but there's no getting away from the fact that we're not on a social visit. I go and sit next to Cassandra – I wonder how she's taking this playacting but I can't detect any hostility. "You two are getting along, I see?"

"She was just telling me about what Shona was like as a baby," Tessa says, a smile wreathing her lovely face. _Why does she have to be so bloody beautiful?_ "Duncan, you didn't tell me that Adam and Cassandra have experience treating the sick, delivering babies and such. I feel so much safer with you two around."

I'd laugh if it wasn't so desperately sad. Mac doesn't see anything ironic, thank God. "That's great, sweetheart," he says. "I'm going to start lunch, if that's okay with you all."

"Good, I'm starving!" she says and they both laugh as if at some old shared joke.

"I'd like to wash up and put some dry jeans on, Duncan," Cassandra says, and that's my cue.

"I'll show you where everything is," I tell her. "I daresay Mac and Tessa can handle things down here. 

Tessa has risen and gone to stand by Mac, who slides an arms around her bulging waist. They look ... I can't look. "Sure, you two go clean up. Lunch will be twenty minutes or so."

Cassandra follows me up stairs, and once in our room, she shuts the door. "I'm sorry, "I say to forestall her anger. "It was all I could come up with."

"Of course, it makes sense," she says, and I'm relieved she's being so sensible. She can't be under any illusions that I want her. "But Tessa...?"

"As far as I can tell, she is a normal, living, breathing human being."

"Damn," she says softly, and sits on the bed. "Are you sure?"

"Sure as I can be. Cassandra, we can't kill her unless we're sure. Maybe Mac's right – maybe she is his reward."

She stares at me intently. "Do you believe that? Really believe that?"

"I don't know what to believe. I wasn't expecting any of this, you know that. And I haven't got the faintest idea what to do, before you ask. I'm not going to kill Tessa in cold blood but beyond that, I can't see how we can influence matters."

"We have to contrive to be here for the birth, somehow. If only we could bring it forward."

"Sorry, I forgot to bring along my supply of pregnancy hormones," I say sarcastically.

"Methos, try not to see me as the enemy," she says sharply. "I know this is difficult for you ...."

"Do you?" I almost shout. "Can you possibly have any idea how it feels to watch those two together?"

"Keep your voice down, you fool, and yes, I am fully aware of how painful it is," she snaps. "The fact of the matter is that there is nothing we can do about that at the moment. Concentrate on what we're going to do about the baby."

"And what if it's human? What if Mac's right about that too? Tessa's real, perhaps the child is too."

She considers my point. "Then we wish them good luck and leave, I suppose."

 _And I will walk away forever._ "Since Tessa thinks we're able to look after her in a crisis, I doubt it will be difficult to convince Mac to let us stay until they go back to the mainland. After that, I think he will be suspicious. You need to build up a relationship with her."

"And you with him. I think part of him is very worried, Methos. I sense that. It won't be hard for him to let you hang around, provided he doesn't detect any threat from either of us."

"And if this 'thing' intervenes?"

"It almost certainly will," she says gravely. "So be on your guard."

_But against what?_

* * *

It seems that Mac and Tessa live very simply – the meal is the least elaborate I'd ever known him serve. I can't say my appetite is flattering to the cook, but seeing Mac and Tessa together is enough to take away any desire for food, possibly even permanently. Fool that I am, I had actually thought that fighting the monster would be the hardest part of coming back to the island. I hadn't really understood that my feelings for Mac had not died at all, but merely been buried. Now, they are erupting, overwhelming me, and it is almost more than I can manage to be civil and calm as Mac talks affectionately and with real friendship to me, yet still manages to convey how Tessa and the child he believes is his have made him complete in a way I could never do.

I want to be able to hate Tessa, but I can't. She is warm and kind and utterly charming. Even Cassandra, who didn't take well to Amanda at all, is clearly finding it very easy to be friendly to her. We came to the island hoping to extricate Mac from the trap he has fallen into. Increasingly, it looks like we will have to save both of them. But how?

After the meal, Cassandra and I sit politely and watch the two of them share an intimate embrace. She whispers in his ear before excusing herself to have a nap. "I'm sorry to be rude," she says, "but I get so tired these days."

"Only natural," I say reassuringly. She really is carrying a hell of a load on quite a slight frame, and I wonder how much weight she's put on. Duncan takes her arm and helps her upstairs, but he's back in a minute or two.

"She's feeling okay?" I ask. 

I see a tinge of worry in his expression. "Ever since ... she returned, she's been, I dunno, quieter. Frail, almost. I was worried when she got pregnant that it would be too much for her, but she's been okay, mostly. Just tired a lot of the time."

Cassandra murmurs something about that being not too unusual, but it turns out that something else is occupying his mind. He sits down across from us. "Now, you two – I want the truth." 

I frown at him. I thought we'd sorted this out. "What do you mean, Mac? I told you ...."

"Methos, if you think I'll believe that eight months ago you had a total nervous breakdown to the point that you thought I had tried to murder you, and that somehow you've recovered your sanity in that time, you really are nuts. Someone did hurt you, didn't they? If it wasn't me and it wasn't Joe – who was it?"

Shit. I always make the mistake of underestimating this man. Before I can answer, he does it for me. "It was Ahriman, wasn't it?"

All I can do is nod. "Fuck," he says. 

"We don't think it's really 'Ahriman', actually. It never was," Cassandra volunteers, to my surprise. "But we think whatever was tormenting you before is responsible for what happened to Methos. And before that, when we were kidnapped." She explains quickly about the disparity in Lazlo's diary.

"Jesus!' he explodes. "It was bad enough thinking ... thinking that Richie ... but that too?" His expression shows how horrified he is, but then realisation dawns. "You didn't come here to help me, did you? You came here to rescue me." Damn. I realise there is nothing for it but to tell him the whole truth, but again, he forestalls me. "You thought Tessa was Ahriman, didn't you? That's what Joe thinks?" I start to explain, but he leaps up and grabs my shirt. "If you think you're going to hurt her...."

I shove him back. "Shut up, MacLeod and give us a chance to explain. First of all, you can hardly blame Joe for being worried. Second of all, Cassandra helped me see what it was that attacked me, and you can't blame _me_ for being worried. Not after all that's happened." I glare at him fiercely. 

"You think Tessa is a demon," he says, moving back to the armchair, still watching me warily. "I know she's not, she's real...."

"Yes, she is. I know that."

Now that's confused him. "Explain," he says tersely.

I nudge Cassandra, hoping that her longer relationship with him will prevent him feeling threatened, and hoping she will have enough sense to use the Voice if he becomes violent. She takes the hint. "Duncan, Methos can see past the illusion created by this Ahriman. He knows Tessa is real, however improbable we thought that was before we arrived."

"You thought I was in danger?"

"Yes, we did, Mac, and with bloody good reason," I chip in. "You really don't want to know what this thing looks like in reality."

Quietly, Cassandra explains how I was deceived by the glamour cast by this creature, and what she had to do to help me see past it. "But what about the baby?" he asks finally, cutting to the heart of the matter. "Methos, if Tessa is real, the child is real too, right?"

He stares at me, such hope in his eyes, and I just don't know what to say. Cassandra rescues me. "What we think is that you, and Tessa, will be most vulnerable at the time of the birth. That's why we've come now."

"I can't lose her again, Cassandra. I'll do anything, give up anything to keep her safe. Please, if you can help, you have to."

"You don't need to ask, Mac," I tell him. "That's what we've come to do."

His eyes burn into mine. "You understand that if it comes to a choice between her and me, it has to be her. Her and my son. Promise me that, Methos. Promise me that you'll save her."

God. "I ... I can't, Duncan. You can't ask me to do that." He grimaces, and I can tell he's gearing up for a fight. "Mac, we want to help you both, now we know she's no demon. But you can't ask me to choose her over you."

To my horror, he comes to kneel in front of us. "Please. You two are the most precious people in the world to me, after her. All I have ever wanted is a family of my own, a child. Can't you understand? My life means less to me than that. Please. Please, Methos."

The last time this man begged me for anything, he was asking me to take his head, and this is uncomfortably reminiscent of that situation. There are tears in his eyes, and answering moisture in my own. "I can't," I say gruffly. Fuck, any more of this, and I'll just break down. "But I swear I will do all I can to protect her, short of anything which leads to your death. I can't promise more. Mac, don't ... don't ask me to kill my heart."

I squeeze his hand, my heart too full to go on. I think he understands. Cassandra lays her hand on his shoulder. "We will do all we can, Duncan."

He nods at her words, but only has eyes for me. I realise, in that moment, that he knows the truth of my feelings for him, and the depth of his regret. "You two aren't really a couple, are you?" he asks quietly, and startled, I confirm his suspicion without thinking. Cassandra is forgotten as we stare at each other. I don't even try to hide my feelings from him. He bends briefly and kisses my hand. "I'm sorry, Methos," he says finally. "I'm truly sorry."

"Don't be, Mac," I say. "Sometimes ... things just aren't meant to be."

I feel Cassandra rise silently and leave the room, giving us our privacy. Mac pulls me down from the chair and into his arms. "Oh Methos, what have I done to you?"

I rest my face against his cheek. "You've done nothing, Duncan. I left you, and you had no explanation. You were given a chance we all dream of, and you were right to take it. I don't blame you." And I don't.

He just holds me without speaking, and pathetic fool that I am, I can't help but just enjoy the feel of his arms around me. "I wish ... I wish there was a way...."

I know what he's trying to say, and I pull back a little. "Mac, we can't protect either of you if your loyalties and your energies are divided. You and she are in danger now and will be until we defeat whatever it is that has done all this, for real."

God, his eyes burn into me. Then his expression changes. "Has anything else happened to you since May?"

"No...no, nothing now you come to mention it." That _is_ odd, I reflect. "I get these headaches, but they aren't new." He nods, no doubt remembering how they had started in Glenfinnan. "We were expecting some resistance to any attempt to tell you the truth, but it hasn't happened."

"Tessa got pregnant in June. The child is another illusion, isn't it?" He's holding my hand so hard it hurts.

"Mac, Tessa _is_ real. I don't know how, but she is. The child – well, we don't know. We think that everything 'Ahriman' has done up until now has been to isolate you and force you into a situation where you will protect Tessa and the baby, no matter what. But it might be that now all its energies are going into preparing for the time of the birth." I stroke his face. "We're working blind, I'm sorry. We really don't know anything. All Landry wrote was bunk, everything we thought we knew was bunk, and I can only speculate. I know there was a monster who clouded my mind about you. Beyond that, I don't know."

"I would die to save her."

"And I, likewise, to save you, Duncan. But a pile of Immortal corpses won't help her or the child or Cassandra, so maybe you and I better plan on living." I manage to smile at him, and tug him up onto the sofa. I don't want Tessa to come downstairs and find her man and a complete stranger weeping in each other's arms.

"We can't tell her about any of this," he says, meaning Tessa, and I couldn't agree more.

"What does she know? About Ahriman, I mean. Did you tell her how Richie died?

He looks ashamed, even though I know he knows there is not the slightest reason for guilt over the boy's death. "I told her Ahriman killed him – I didn't explain how. I told her the rest of it, though. What I knew then, at least."

I nod. "Then she knows enough to understand our concern. There's no need to worry her with the rest of it." His relief is obvious. "Cassandra and I will continue to pretend we are a couple – we really have been sharing a room, so that much is true ...."

"Why?" he asks, curious despite himself.

"Because this thing never attacks a group. It always picks off individuals. You might be right, that since Tessa got pregnant, its activities have died off, but I don't plan to take any chances."

"Good idea," he agrees. "I'm glad you two are here. But what about the birth?"

Time to be careful, although he has taken all that has been revealed remarkably calmly. "There are two things to be considered – her safety and that of the child's, and the safety of innocent bystanders. We already know that it will kill without hesitation if it feels it is being thwarted. Naturally you want the best medical care for her – but if medical staff and patients die because of it?"

"You could...?"

I stop him, because I have already anticipated his request. "Mac, it's been a damn long time since I delivered a baby. Cassandra's more up to date than I am, and neither of us could cope with a serious complication without equipment and decent drugs. Would you ever forgive us if anything happened to Tessa because of our ineptitude?"

I'm fully aware I am putting him in an impossible situation, and he presses his lips together in frustration before standing up to pace about the room. He throws some more wood on the dying fire and spends a minute or two fussing with that. "Nothing is more important than she is," he says finally, his voice muffled. Then he turns to face me. "But she would never allow other innocent people to die to save her. Methos, you have to help me. You know what she means to me, you know the risks. You're the only person who can help."

"Damn it, Mac," I say without thinking, and his head lifts up. "You know what you're asking?"

Once more he comes to me and kneels in front of me, taking my hand. "I'm asking you to risk your life to help save all of us from Ahriman. I'm asking for your skill to save her from what's inside her. And I'm asking you to save my son, if that's what it is."

"And if I fail?"

"All I ask is that you try, Methos. For me."

I stroke his hair back from his face – he's still growing it. "For you, and for her. I promise to do my best." And so I plunge headlong into God knows what, with the best intentions. "How will you explain it to her? You were planning to go ashore soon."

He sits back on his haunches and considers. "I could tell her that because of the Immortal angle, you don't know what will happen at the birth and it might be better to keep outsiders away?"

"Shit, and you expect me to make that believable?"

"If you tell her who you are and how old you are, she'll believe you."

I don't know whether to laugh at him or punch him, sometimes. "Mac, do you just enjoy outing me, or is it a natural talent?"

"Aw, come on, Methos, " he says, teasing me slightly, "here's your chance to impress a pretty lady."

"Right," I say sceptically. "Okay, but let me talk to Cassandra first. We might be able to come up with something more convincing. Don't go telling her yourself, you're a lousy liar."

"I only pretend to be a lousy liar," he says cheekily, but then falls solemn again. "You know this means more to me than I can say."

"Part-payment for services rendered," I say seriously. "But don't get your hopes up too far, okay? Five thousand years or not, I'm not actually Superman." 

* * *

After Duncan gives me a last, quick, and entirely painful embrace, he goes upstairs to check on Tessa. I go out the back of the house to where Cassandra is sitting on the woodpile. "You should be frozen solid," I joke, coming to sit by her, close enough to offer her some of my heat. It's my fault, after all, that she is out here, but she doesn't look bothered. She's well wrapped up against the cold, and is damn hardy anyway. "He wants me to deliver Tessa."

She looks at me, her expression unreadable then turns away, staring out at the stand of trees some fifty metres from the house. "He's still convinced it is his child?"

"No. To give him due, he's as aware as we are that Tessa might be carrying a monster. Is there anything you can do to tell?"

She shakes her head. "I can't sense a damn thing, which worries me. Tessa and her offspring might as well not be there."

"But she's real."

"She doesn't belong here, Methos. No good can come of overturning the natural order this way."

"But," I point out, "we do that every time we revive from death."

She glances at me sideways. "Perhaps that is why we are driven to kill each other. To right the distortion."

"Bull."

She shrugs. "It hardly matters. How will you convince Tessa to let you midwife her?"

"Um, I was hoping you could help me concoct a story."

She stands up and looks at me with a vaguely pitying expression. "Methos, you know he is hers now, don't you?"

The apparent _non sequitur_ doesn't confuse me. "And for that reason I will help them both. What injures him, injures me."

"And that which injures you, old man?"

"I didn't know you cared, Cassandra."

She snorts with annoyance at my flippant remark. "We've been over this before, don't treat me like a fool. Your life has worth, your life means a lot to other people. Including Duncan. So, what will you do?"

"What bloody choice do I have, Cassandra?" I hiss at her. "If Mac takes her across to the hospital, and she spawns some creatures that rips the place in two, how will either of them forgive themselves for that? This is Holy ground. At least we have some chance of defeating it here."

"Holy ground did nothing before, according to Duncan."

"He's still alive, isn't he?" I reach for her arm. "I have to do this. We came here to help him, that's what I'm going to do."

She sighs. "And I came here to help you, so that's what I will do. We'll need equipment, pain relief. Blood too."

"And something to convince her to let us mess with her body and her child."

She stamps her feet a little as she thinks. It is really bitingly cold, although the snow has stopped. She should be home, in the milder clime of the west coast of Scotland, with her daughter and her friend, not babysitting me and Duncan and a bloody baby demon. If any of this is going through her head, she doesn't show it. "We were talking about home births before, when you and Duncan were upstairs. I think she'd actually prefer to have the baby here, but she was afraid to without assistance. I don't think she will need much persuading."

"And if there's a problem?"

She looks at me narrowly. "Well, then, Dr Pierson, I hope you remember more medicine than you think."

* * *

It all looked simple when we were discussing it, but we had reckoned without the lady herself. An hour later, Tessa comes downstairs, leaning on Mac, and looking rumpled. Obviously well practised in her needs, Mac immediately puts water on to boil and provides her with cookies. I note that despite her hearty appetite, she doesn't appear to be carrying any extra weight other than the mass on her stomach. I don't know what she usually looks like, but she strikes me as being on the thin side. Once she has been supplied with refreshment, Mac tentatively raises the idea of her remaining on the island to give birth. Her reaction is vehement. "Duncan MacLeod, are you insane?" She doesn't shout, but none of us are fool enough to mistake the seriousness of her question. "You're the one who's been telling me that I need to be in the hospital, given my age and the fact it's our first child. And now you want to risk all that? Why?"

He rubs her arms. "Sweetheart, I've been talking to Adam, and he thinks...."

She turns her baleful look upon me. "Adam? You couldn't talk to me about this? Or are you one of these men who think pregnant women have no brain?"

Ooops. Fucking ooops. You'd think someone my age would have stopped making the mistake of underestimating females a long time ago. What can I say? MacLeod rubs off on me. "I apologise, Tessa. I was talking to Mac while you were asleep, and I did mean to talk to you."

It doesn't mitigate her glare at all. "And why this sudden need to keep me here? I know nothing about you. Duncan says you're his friend, but I don't know you, and I don't know if you can handle any of the things that could happen to me." She turns her fierce look on Mac. "What aren't you telling me, Duncan?"

"Tess, we're just worried ...."

"So am I! That's why I want the best medical care...." She stares at each of us in turn. "This is something to do with Immortals? But I'm not Immortal. The baby will just be a normal child."

That's my cue. "We don't know that, Tessa," I say calmly.

"How can you know it isn't? Why are you suddenly the expert? Duncan, who is this man?"

Uh oh, any minute now she's going to order me out, and Mac, good man that he is, will have no choice but to abide by that. I reach across the little table and seize her hands. "Listen to me," I order, putting the full force of command into my voice. She goes completely still. Good, she really isn't stupid. "Tessa, my real name is Methos. I am five thousand years old. Cassandra was born three thousand years ago."

She pulls her hands away and gasps. "Five ... my God. Duncan, is it true?"

"Yes, it really is. Methos is the oldest of our kind that we know about."

She looks at me, then at Cassandra, her thoughts transparent. I know how incomprehensible such a span must be, and how impossible it must seem that I, who can manage to look forty at the oldest with makeup and at my most haggard and underfed, could encompass such an impossible longevity. Hell, I don't believe it sometimes, and I've lived it. Finally she put all the information together. "So, you know all about this sort of thing?"

I shake my head. "No, dear girl, I wish I did. What I'm trying to tell you that in all my years of living, and in all of Cassandra's, neither of us have seen or heard of an Immortal having a child, by one of our kind or by a mortal, let alone ... someone in your situation."

"You mean someone who was dead?" I bow my head in acknowledgement of her point. "But my baby ... my child." She lays her hands protectively over her stomach. "Adam ... Methos, the baby is normal. I've seen all the test results, the scans. They all say it's a healthy little boy."

I resist the temptation to look at Mac. The truth is, I don't have an answer for this. "Tessa, I can't claim superior knowledge here. None of us can. The cirumstances of the conception are worrying, and so is the involvement of Ahriman. But it's your body, and your life and your child. You are the one who has to decide, and I'm sorry if we gave you the impression that decisions were being made over your head."

Mac slides his arm around her shoulders. "Yes, sweetheart, I'm sorry too." She nuzzles against him briefly, and I gather he is forgiven.

She lifts her head. "What about you, Cassandra? What do you recommend?"

I turn and look at my companion, who is all serenity. "Home births are popular, and if you want that, I see no reason not to go ahead with it, even without the other factors. True, if there is a problem, we may not be able to cope. I can give you no guarantees. Nor could the hospital. It is something to consider that if anything unusual occurs during the birth, having the baby in the hospital may make things more difficult."

A more fair-minded, balanced exposition one could not hope for, and I can see Tessa is impressed. It doesn't make her decision any easier. "Duncan, you think I should trust them?"

"Trust them, yes, love, but it's up to you if you want them to deliver our son." I smile at Mac – honesty has proved to be the best policy so far, and it looks like continuing to be so. Short of tying Tessa up, her cooperation is essential and she's too bright to be deceived for long. 

"God," she says. "I need to think. Do I have to decide right now?"

"No, of course you don't," he assures her. "Only Methos and Cassandra will need to make sure they have everything on hand if you decide to have it here."

"Yes, I understand that. I'm only talking about a couple of days. You two are going to stay for a while, aren't you?"

It appears she accepts us as trustworthy, which is something at least. "Of course. As long as you both need us."

It's obvious she wants to end the subject, because she determinedly turns the conversation onto Shona, a subject on which the rest of us are happy to talk. Internally I am thinking things have gone incredibly well, and after supper, I confess to Cassandra in our room that this makes me uneasy. "Yes, I know. But right now you'd better think about what will happen if she accepts our proposal."

She is stripping off her jeans unselfconsciously and pulling on a pair of grotty sweat pants I recognised as her standard slop around the house gear. We haven't told Tessa about the falsehood concerning our relationship, because it made accommodations awkward and because it removes us as a source of potential jealousy, a complication we really don't need on top of anything. Provided I can tamp down my own turbulent emotions on the subject, I'm confident we could carry this off.

She slips under the abundant duvets and blankets. This is undeniably awkward but we've made our bed, we have to lie in it. The punning thought makes me grin. "What?" she asks.

"Nothing. You want to know something else that's odd – my headache has gone."

She sits up. "Really?" She's fully aware that the nagging pain has dogged me for every minute of the last three weeks, and a good many of the ones prior to that. "I wish I knew if that was a good or a bad sign."

I know what she means. "I'd put it down to us being on Holy ground except that Holy ground has made not the slightest difference to this thing up until now."

"I don't think we can know. Are you coming to bed?"

I shed my outer clothes and slip into bed, careful not to touch her. It's not the widest of beds, but I have to at least try to give her some privacy. "I could sleep on the sofa," I offer.

"Don't be an idiot, Methos."

"As you wish." I turn out the light.

She's lying on her back. It seems rude to turn away from her, but turning towards her seems too intimate, so I too lie flat. "Duncan doesn't have a phone here."

"No, he has a shortwave radio. He has to go across to the mainland to telephone. Why?"

"I want to call home."

Ah. "We can go across tomorrow. It's a short boat ride, and Mac must need to buy supplies."

I feel her roll toward me. "One of us must remain with her at all times, Methos. Preferably you."

"Will Mac trust her to me?"

A silence. Then, "You must ensure that he does. That means you must push your feelings aside."

"Easier said than done," I say and the bitterness is obvious even to me.

She doesn't respond, and I guess she doesn't think it's worth commenting on. But she says quietly, "These things perhaps happen for a reason. You are not alone, Methos."

Trite words that nonetheless are a balm on my battered heart. At least they allow me to fall into a dreamless and restful sleep.

* * *

The house is freezing when I wake, and although I am reluctant to leave the warm nest that Cassandra has helped to make, I think it is more politic not to linger. The window is frost rimed, and, unusually for this area, the sky is blue, the ground covered with a light covering of snow, and the trees and the eaves sparkling with frost. A magical and beautiful sight, and I almost call to her to come see it, as if we are truly intimate, before biting my tongue. I dress quietly and go downstairs. To my surprise, Tessa is up, and waves me to a pot of herb tea she has already made.

"Where's Mac?" I ask, the Scot being a notorious lark. I can't believe he isn't up.

"Jogging. I used to go with him before...." She indicates her waist. "I feel so lumpen sometimes."

Presuming on my medical credentials, I take her wrist in my hand, as if to feel her pulse. "If anything, I think you could do with putting on a little more weight."

"But I eat like a horse, Adam. I mean, Methos." She blushes.

"Adam is fine. Well, as long as you're eating well, which I assume you are with Mac looking after you...?"

"Oh, he's wonderful, Adam. He spent ages researching everything, I swear he knows more about being pregnant than I do."

That, I can well imagine. "You're finding fatigue a problem, he said."

She puts her hands under the bulge. "This little fellow weighs a ton." She looks at me intently. "Adam, do you really think there's a problem with him?"

This is no time to fudge things. "Tessa, I'd like to believe that all is well, for your sake and his, but there are too many things to give me concern."

She is so exquisite, her skin fragile and translucent, her eyes huge, and I feel a surge of protectiveness, absurdedly coloured with jealousy, pass through me. She misunderstands my expression. "Adam, I know you will do the best you can, no one would blame you if that was not enough. As you say, it's my choice."

"Yes, it is. I couldn't blame you if you went with the conventional approach, and I will be there, as will Cassandra. We'll do all we can."

"You must love Duncan very much." 

I freeze. How the hell has she guessed? "I...Tessa...."

"Duncan is someone who needs his friends. I'm glad you care so much."

I hide my considerable relief. "You have no idea how much his friendship means to me. It's not easy always concealing one's identity." I'm entirely sincere, even if it's only a tiny part of the truth.

She smiles again. "I wonder where he is? I must start breakfast, I'm hungry." She covers her mouth. "Oh dear, I'm being so rude. I don't know what's come over me. My stomach seems to dominate my life."

I can't help but grin. "If some of my wives are anything to go by, that's entirely normal. Let me start things. Do you make oatmeal?"

"Yes," she says distractedly, as I get up and start looking for the makings. "Adam, your wives were pregnant? How can that be?"

"Oh easily. I wasn't the father, if that's what you were thinking." Ah, spotted it – the oatmeal is right where I am expecting it, in a cupboard which is laid out in an eerily familiar way. As is the kitchen. And the entire house, if I'm honest. Mac has a way of stamping his personality on any place he lives in, just as the Glenfinnan croft was gradually reshaped to his liking while he lived there. Cassandra and Shona were living there after we left – I find myself wondering how much they have changed things. Tessa's voice interrupts me.

"You married women who were already pregnant?"

"It's not unusual for Immortals to do that, Tessa. For much of my lifetime, being unmarried and childless created suspicion, and pregnant widows and single women aren't usually too picky about husbands."

She hauls herself up from the sofa and comes over to watch me cook, sitting down heavily on a stool. "You never married for love?"

"The two things aren't mutually exclusive, you know."

I can't see her expression as I turn to attend to the boiling water into which I'm pouring the oatmeal, but I hear the puzzlement. "But children aren't so important to you as for Duncan?"

The porridge is stirred and set to low, and I can turn to her. "Mac's clan was everything to him. I don't even remember my family," I say with a shrug.

Something like pity passes over her face. "When ...Duncan first told me we couldn't have children, it hurt so much. Both of us."

"There are other ways of having a child. Cassandra adopted, and there's artificial insemination."

"Yes, and we would have done that if...if things hadn't turned out the way they did." I'm not surprised the subject of her death and incredible return causes her hesitation. She seems embarrassed by it. "Adam, you should have seen Duncan when I told him I was pregnant. His face – I've never seen such happiness. His own son, blood of his blood. It's a miracle."

If she had struck me in the gut, it could not have tightened more painfully. There is nothing, nothing at all, I can ever offer Mac that comes close to this incredible gift. And nothing, not even the death of Richard Ryan, will approach the pain it will give him if the dream turns into a nightmare. "I can imagine," I say calmly. "More tea?"

With a blast of cold air, the subject of our discussion bounds into the room, and sweeps Tessa up. "Oof! Get off me, you brute!" she protests. "You're cold!"

"Mmmm," he growls, nuzzling against her neck, "and you're warm. Wanna come back to bed?"

"Duncan," she reproves, looking at me. I force myself to keep smiling benignly, even though I'm seriously tempted to pick the breadknife up and stick it into Mac for being so bloody thoughtless. 

He stands up, and I guess there is a slight apology in his greeting. "Hi, Methos. Sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you. Breakfast is almost ready. "

"Oh, keep it warm, I need to shower or Tessa will bitch."

She slaps his backside and he leaps away and out of the room as suddenly as he entered it. "Just one morning, I wish he would skip the run," she sighs, and I sympathise silently, knowing how many mornings I had wished exactly the same thing. My bizarre sense of humour almost makes me laugh at the irony of us both sharing frustrations over the same man, and I bite my lip. Explaining would be just too difficult.

There seems no reason to wait for the others, oatmeal and toast not being time dependent, so I serve our food and pour out more tea. It's companionable and pleasant, again reminiscent of my Scottish sojourn. Tessa is a congenial hostess and once I turn conversation onto her art, she is enthusiastic, promising to show me some of the smaller wooden pieces that she's turned her hand to. It's a subject on which I can talk for hours, and I've always genuinely enjoyed her work. Hanging around MacLeod has given me a solid knowledge of her oeuvre, and she's attractively flattered by my appreciation. 

As we talk, her eyes and hands all animated, I find myself praying that things will be okay, that her return to the world will be followed by a natural lifespan, that her child will be all she hopes it will be. For the first time, it's entirely for her own sake, not just because of what it would do to Mac. She has the same luminous goodness that Alexa had, although the two women could not have been more different in other respects. Such bright souls have been rare enough in my long lifetime, and I can easily understand how Tessa's first death left such a gaping hole in my lover's life.

Ex-lover. God fucking dammnit, Methos, get a goddamn grip. "Adam, are you all right?"

I realise I've shut my eyes reflexively against my own thoughts. When I open them, of course she is looking at me in concern. What else would you do if your breakfast companion suddenly loses his mind? "I'm fine," I manage to say. "Perhaps I should go and see what's keeping Cassandra." I push myself away from the counter and go upstairs before I make a bigger fool of myself.

Cassandra is dressing when I enter the room. "What's wrong?" Too sharp, this woman, by a very long way. "Is it Duncan?"

"No, it's me, being a bloody idiot." I fling myself onto the chair and ridiculously, I feel my eyes tear up. I cover my embarrassment with irritation. "I must be out of my fucking mind, coming here. Everything's fine, she's happy, healthy, Mac's happy, he doesn't need me ...."

She crouches before me. "He does need you, Methos. More than ever before. And he loves you, I saw that yesterday. Is that such a poor thing?" 

I hang my head and close my eyes, unwilling to expose myself to that perceptive gaze. She asks a reasonable question. Mac's love is not a poor thing at all, and for years I was happy to have to be that of a friend. All I am feeling is the kicking of a spoilt child deprived of a favourite toy, sitting in a room full of substitutes. "Methos, what will happen when Tessa dies?"

"You expect me to wait for a dead woman's shoes?"

She is staring at me, ever calm. "She is not Immortal, regardless of what is happening now. One day, Duncan will be alone again."

I sneer at the uninviting prospect. "And I'm the substitute come off the bench? What about the child, Cassandra? He will be tied to that for seventy years, and then its children and grandchildren ...."

"If it's real."

"It's real," I say, and suddenly I'm utterly convinced of that. "We're wrong about that. The child is normal. Too many people have seen proof of that."

She sits back on her heels. "Even so, you are imagining a bleaker future than you need to. Tessa's return is an event not to be repeated, and if you want it, Mac's love will be there for you."

I fold my arms, feeling unfriendly. "I'm not going to hang around for fifty years waiting for her to die. It's demeaning to both of us. Who knows who I could meet in that time? I've never lived my life like that and I refuse to start now, even for Duncan bloody MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

She doesn't say anything, but her silence gives me a chance to get a grip on myself. Just in time, for Duncan is knocking on our door, inviting us to come down and finish breakfast. "Will you be able to handle this?" she asks.

"Do I have a choice?" She gives me a look. "Yes, I know, stop being an fool, Methos."

She laughs. "Come on, old man. Time to save the world."

"What, again?"

* * *

Saving the world turns out to be comfortingly dull. Because of Mac's influence, the rhythm of his life with Tessa closely resembles mine with him. Cassandra's routine is very similar, back in Scotland, so four adults in a small cabin actually don't get in each other's way as much as we might have done. Despite the weather, there are plenty of opportunities to get out of the house, and if Mac notices that one of us is always with Tessa, he doesn't comment. If anything, he seems to be pleased that we're all getting along so well. I catch him beaming at us in a parental fashion once or twice, and scowl at him, which doesn't deter him in the least.

Trips to the mainland happen twice a week or more, for Mac to pick up his emails, for Cassandra to call Shona and Jane, and to pick up supplies. Other than that, little disturbs the solitude and peace of the island, as much a haven for Mac as the croft was back in Glenfinnan. I find myself forgetting my purpose here, letting the serenity and the isolation calm my soul in a way Ferenc Lazlo's old home could not do. There, I was constantly on guard, living under siege, or so I imagined. Here, although there is a theoretical danger, it is so easy to pretend that we're just a group of friends having a pleasant holiday together.

After the first few days, it's even possible to lay aside the pain of Mac not being mine any more. It would take a mean-spirited person not to be beguiled by the couple he and Tessa make, and she goes out of her way to make Cassandra and me at home. Tessa also decides that she would like to give birth on the island, with the proviso that Mac can call for assistance by helicopter if things get really nasty. It's only a half hour boat ride across the water – we figure that we can get her to the local hospital in under an hour. I can handle most things, including an emergency caesarean section, so if she's prepared to gamble on my being able to deal with the birth, I'm ready for the challenge.

I let Cassandra handle the birthing equipment side of things, since she talks the right language to rouse least suspicion. The two of us get up to speed on Tessa's condition, and she is touchingly trusting, allow us to poke and prod and ask intimate questions. Mac either absents himself or stands quietly aside. At such times, when he looks at me, his emotions are naked. Worry. Pride. Aching need for the child and the woman under our hands. I've never seen him look so young. Or so damn vulnerable.

When Tessa decides that she wants to use a birthing pool, Cassandra is enthusiastic, despite my reservations about such new-fangled trendiness. Reservations that Mac shares, and over which we grumble good-naturedly while the ladies draw up lists. It will mean a trip to Seacouver, and so Tessa is making the most of the opportunity, inveigling Cassandra into purchasing all manner of goodies for the baby to come. It's assumed from the beginning that Cassandra will go, and I'm expecting something of a fight from Mac when I suggest I stay behind, but to my surprise and relief he doesn't argue at all, instead agreeing that someone who can handle an emergency needs to be on hand, and I'm the best person for the job. I can't resist asking, "Are you sure you trust me with her?"

He clasps my hands. "With my very soul, Methos. You've sworn to protect her. That's good enough for me." Damn the man. The Boy Scout mentality is definitely catching.

But before they can leave on what will be an overnight trip, the weather turns very nasty, and we're closed in by howling winds and hail for three days, with no sign of a let-up for another two. Mac and Tessa are sanguine – it happens all the time, they say, and it is still three weeks before she is due, with no cause for alarm that I can see. None of what we're obtaining is absolutely essential, just desirable, and should she give birth before we get it, then she will do it the old-fashioned way.

With the weather the way it is, the larder and woodpile well-stocked, and enough fuel to last the generator for a month or more, all we need to do is hunker down and enjoy the togetherness. Immortals aren't prone to spending a lot of time in each other's company for obvious reasons, Mac being an infamous oddity among our kind, but we are all well-used to each other. Tessa is blooming, but tires easily, and it's only eight o'clock when she excuses herself to go to bed, leaving us three to play cards and talk. Mac breaks out the whiskey, something not often seen since Tessa can't drink, and soon we're all as mellow as three old friends – three old lovers, come to think of it – can possibly be. "Don't you think it's odd that all of us have slept with the other two?" I muse idly. 

Cassandra scowls at the indelicacy of my comment, but Mac gives me a wry grin. "I dunno, I'm often in company where I've slept with everyone present."

Cassandra looks shocked. "Slut," I tease. 

"Hey, if you want to live like a monk, that's your problem, Methos."

We're well past the point where I feel any need to make bitchy comments about my present celibacy being enforced on me by a certain Scot. "Well, look at Cassandra. When was the last time she had sex?"

She looks at me over her whiskey glass. "Last night," she says smoothly, and I just know she enjoys seeing me spit twelve year old scotch all over myself. Mac laughs like a damn fool as I sputter and flick the booze off myself. "Oh, you mean with a man? Oh, that's easy. 1996, with Duncan."

"Really?" he says, surprised. I don't know why. Cassandra is notoriously picky. She decided she could be, after she escaped from me.

"Yes, really, Duncan," she says severely. "I like them handsome or I like them rich. Either type is thin on the ground in Glenfinnan."

"You sound like Amanda," I grumble, refilling my spilled drink.

"Amanda," she says, sipping her Scotch, "is an amateur."

I hoot at the thought of our favourite thief hearing _that_ particular assessment. 

Several hours later, we pour ourselves into bed. It's the best evening I've had since I left Scotland, and Cassandra is still chuckling softly to herself. It's a nice sound

Not so the squawk of Mac's shortwave radio at five in the morning, when it's still completely dark and cold. I wonder what the hell can be so important – but my puzzlement doesn't last long. Mac knocks on the bedroom door and doesn't wait for an invitation before barging right in. "Cassandra? Are you awake?"

She struggle up. "What's wrong?"

"That was Steve, at the store. It's Shona, I'm sorry."

Instinctively, I reach for her, but she's clambering out of bed. "What's happened?" 

Her tone is sharp, unsurprisingly, and Mac's answer is equally short. "A car accident. School bus. Three kids killed, the rest badly injured. She's alive," he says quickly, as Cassandra gasps. I get out of bed quickly and wrap my arms around her, knowing how she must feel at the news. Mac continues explaining. "She's in critical condition in Fort William. Fractured skull and a broken pelvis. The hospital want you to come. Jane's with her."

"We have to go. I need to go now."

Mac puts a hand on her shoulder and I hold her tight, feelling the tremors. "As soon as it's light. I'll drive you to Seacouver. With the weather, you might have to wait for a connecting flight. The direct ones only go once a day."

"Mac, I can drive her," I protest, feeling I should do something. _Oh, God, Shona._

"No," he says, pinning me with his eyes. "Methos, I need you here, to look after Tessa." 

Something in his look makes me realise what his real fear is. "Oh shit - the fire at the dojo. Mac, are we sure this is real?"

"Steve's checking back for me. We need to assume it is."

"We need to go, Duncan," Cassandra snaps. 

I shake her gently. "Dawn is two hours away. Pack, eat breakfast, and Mac will take you across."

"Shona," she chokes, and I hold her close, stroking her hair. 

Mac nods at me. "I need to tell Tessa, and get some gear together. Look after her, Methos."

He hardly needs to tell me. I make her sit and let her sob a little. Being Cassandra, the fit doesn't last long, and she pushes me away, roughly wiping her eyes and glaring at me fiercely. "Why didn't I know this? I should have felt it."

"I don't know. You think it's a trick?"

" _I_ don't know. Dammit, Methos, if I leave and anything happens ...." 

"And if you stay and Shona dies?" She covers her mouth, eyes wide in shock, brimming with tears. "I know, girl, I know. Duncan will be back in twenty-four hours. And you can come back as soon as you know what's happening, if it is a hoax. But," I say gently, "the dojo fire was real."

"Methos, she's my life."

I hug her again, knowing that only such an extreme situation allows her to tolerate me, and knowing that, for the moment, she desperately needs the comfort. I know exactly what she's going through. When Alexa was dying, getting the call from Joe about Mac and the dark Quickening, I was utterly torn. I still partly regret that I stole those few days from her, but if I had not, Mac would be dead. So would Joe, most likely. But it was time I could never, ever get back.

"Go shower," I say, when it seems she is a little calmer. "I'll pack, and make you some food."

"You think I can eat?"

"It's a long, long drive to Seacouver, Cassandra, and a long flight afterwards. You won't help anyone if you pass out from low blood sugar. Now go," I order, and she obeys with only a token glare.

She has few enough things to pack, and it takes me all of five minutes to pull things together. I leave the bag on the bed which I've straightened up for want of anything more constructive to do. When I go downstairs, a sleepy Tessa greets me. She's already boiling water and rummaging about for bread and other food. "Is she okay?" she asks.

"Too soon to tell," I say. God, what a bloody morning. It's still only half past five. I know Mac will be off across the lake the second it's safe. "She's taking it hard, as you can imagine."

"Poor lady. She must be out of her mind."

I grunt. Not much to say. I consider what I can make that she is likely to tolerate, and decide on toast. Tessa is already washing out thermoses, and making sandwiches. I give her hand at the task, which we complete just as Cassandra, and then Mac, come downstairs. The wind is howling, rattling the doors, and not a minute after they come down, it begins to rain again. "Can you get across in this?"

He looks at me levelly. "If we have to. And we do have to."

"Yes." I agree. But I don't like it much. Damn boats.

"Duncan, you'll be careful, won't you?" Tessa asks.

He puts his arms around her. "Yes, of course, love. And Methos is going to make sure you're okay while I'm gone."

I put three fingers up. "Scout's honour," I say.

"But you can't have been a boy scout," she points out.

"That never stops MacLeod," I say. "Cassandra, I've made some toast."

"Just some tea, Methos. I'm not hungry."

I know better than to argue with her. Tessa doesn't. She pushes a plate towards Cassandra. "Eat something, it will help. I know."

"You can't possibly know," Cassandra snaps.

To her credit, Tessa doesn't even blink. "No," she says gently. "But I might do one day, and I know what it's like to have your family in danger. You can't leave for a little while. Have some toast with your tea, it will sit better on your stomach."

The young mortal mothers a woman a hundred times her age, and coaxes her to eat. Mac signals me silently and we step out the back into the utility room. "You think this is a ruse?" he asks.

"What difference does it make what I think, Mac? We were fooled before. I just hope to Christ, Shona is okay. Joe!" I suddenly think. "He can at least check that this is all real."

"I'll ask him when I get ashore. Methos, Steve has my mobile number. You radio him and tell him if anything – anything, you hear me? – happens."

"And you make sure that you get our girl there in one piece and come straight back. Mac, are you sure you want to leave?"

He stares at me in exasperation. "No, of course I don't want to leave, but I can't let her travel on her own, I can't subject Tessa to the boat ride or the drive, and if anything happens to her, I need you here. You get her ashore at first sign of trouble, don't try and handle things on your own."

"I promise, Mac. No point in swearing on my honour, is there?"

He smiles, and gives me a brief, crushing hug. "Your word is good enough for me, Methos. Let's go back in."

Cassandra is being comforted by Tessa, and we don't interrupt. Mac grabs some toast and some tea and eats quickly, running over any problems that might come up with the house that Tessa won't be able to cope with. "Damn it, MacLeod, short of the roof blowing off, what can happen? If it does, I'll just bundle Tessa into the boat and book into a hotel for the night. You concentrate on your job, I know mine, okay?" 

He holds up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm just a little nervous." I snort. "Hey, how many expectant fathers have you ever dealt with?"

"Hardly any. They did things better in olden days – fathers weren't seen or heard. That's the way it should be."

Tessa's heard that last comment, and she smiles wanly over Cassandra's head. I shrug. I'm just trying to keep the tension down.

Anxious minutes pass, and after Cassandra finishes her hasty breakfast, and frees herself from Tessa's gentle attentions, she paces back and forth. None of us have the heart to tell her to sit down. Not with her face betraying the pain she is feeling. On the dot of seven she wants to move, but it is still pitch dark outside because of the rain, and despite her impatience, Mac forces her to wait for another half hour. Finally she flings the door open and goes out into the rain, and after a quick hug for Tessa and a significant glance at me, Mac follows her. Now long after I hear the Evinrude start up over the sound of the wind. I expect the radio to crackle into life within the hour, with Mac's friend telling us they've arrived and departed safely.

I look over to Tessa, and note with some concern that she's paler than usual. "Are you all right?"

She smiles with a visible effort. "I didn't sleep well and then this news.... Poor Cassandra, I can only imagine how she feels."

"Right now, since Mac has put you into my care, I'm more worried about you. Why don't you go back to bed? There is literally nothing you can do now, and I'm happy to run up and down the stairs for you."

"That would be nice, Adam," she says, climbing off the stool. She rubs her lower back, leaning back in the classic stance of the gravid female.

"The little guy doing the fandango in there?"

"No, he's been quiet – just a kick now and then to remind me he's there. No, my back aches. It's why I can't sleep."

Common enough in late pregnancy, and easily dealt with. "Has Mac got any heat pads or hot water bottles?"

"Yes, up in the room, but they need filling."

I take her arm, surreptitiously feeling her pulse which is a little fast but not abnormal. "Come upstairs, I'll deal with that."

The way she's moving, I suspect the pain is quite bad, and rest will be good for her. She sinks onto the bed with a little sigh, and indicates the now cooled hot water bottle which Mac must have given her last night. "You haven't had breakfast, would you like me to bring you something?" I ask.

"No, I'm fine. I just need more sleep."

I fill the bottle and take it to her, bringing with me the newly purchased stethoscope. I position the bottle carefully at her lower back, and then listen to her heart and attempt to hear that of the child. I can't detect anything wrong. "Any other aches or pains?"

"My feet, when I stand up."

"Then don't stand up. If that hot water bottle doesn't help, I'll give you a massage later."

"Mmmm," she says drowsily. I think she'll sleep, and creep out quietly, leaving the door open so I can hear any calls for help.

A few minutes later, Mac's friend Steve radios to say that Mac and Cassandra have just left, and that he's had confirmation about Shona's condition direct from Jane at the hospital. No word about Joe – Duncan possibly forgot, or may be planning to call en route. I wish there was some way I could have gone with Cassandra – I desperately want to be assured that Shona is alive, but at least Cassandra will keep me informed.

There's not a lot I can do, except worry and pretend to read one of Duncan's books, which isn't much to my taste, but that's all there is. His main library is in store. Tessa sleeps all morning, and wakes only when I refresh the hot water bottle. She confesses to feeling a little better, but still tired. At lunchtime she eats soup and some toast, but her appetite, while not completely gone, is much less than of late. She declines a massage, and as soon as I take her tray away, goes back to sleep.

Not a bad way to spend a truly horrible today – the rain hardly lets up, and the wind howls non-stop. I should go insane if I had to live here all the year around, trapped with only a boat to allow an escape.

After lunch and doing a little recreational cooking, I doze a little, waking with a start when I hear footsteps on the stairs. I jump up and help Tessa down the last few. "Are you sure you want to be up?"

"Oh, yes, I'm sick of being in bed, and I'm bored."

"I could come and talk to you, or read to you." She pulls a face. "Hey, I'll have you know I was once famous for my story-telling skills."

She laughs, a delightful sound. She does look better, although she is still moving awkwardly. Duncan Junior can't emerge too soon, I think. "I wasn't trying to insult your talents, Adam. It's just that sometimes Duncan treats me a bit too carefully. I'm lucky he ever lets me downstairs."

"He can be a bit overprotective at times."

"A bit! Heavens. Um, Adam, are there any biscuits left? I'm hungry."

"I can do better than that – I've made some banana bread."

That installs me firmly in the register of saints as far as she's concerned, and a vast quantity of the home baked cake disappears, along with tea. Her colour is much better, and she is more lively, the effects of the disturbed sleep and the events of the morning a thing of the past. Since her back is still troubling her, and her feet still on the swollen side, I suggest she settle on the sofa, where the hot water bottle is reapplied and her feet are elevated. "I suppose I will look back on this with envy once he's born," she says.

"I'm guessing that you'll have to fight Duncan to be allowed to do any menial tasks at all. That man is just baby-mad."

"How many children have you raised, Adam? Over five thousand years, there must be hundreds."

"Good God no. Only a couple of dozen who survived childbirth itself," I say casually, rummaging about for the chess board. Then I look up, to see her expression of horror. "I'm sorry, that was thoughtless of me. Different times, Tessa. Poor hygiene, poor diet. The number of women who had deformed pelvises because of rickets alone was responsible for many deaths. You just never see that now. Maternal nutrition has improved out of sight."

"But babies still die."

No point in coddling her. "Yes, they do. And so do children. And if they don't, and they grow to be adults, some break your heart or die young. But most of them outlive their parents. Most of them bring as much joy as they bring pain, and love beyond all reckoning. And if you're really lucky, they give some of that joy to people who aren't even their family at all."

Her eyes are very gentle. "Adam, I know how much you must be worried about Shona. She must be a very special child."

Suddenly, I really don't feel like being exposed in this way. Anything might come out if I start sharing my pain. "She's a well-behaved nine-year-old. All nine-year-olds are special to someone, I guess."

She pats my hand. "I pray she will be all right."

"So do I," I say, and that's the last I want to say about it. Perceptive in a way that Duncan sometimes isn't, she wisely doesn't push, and instead plays a none too shabby game of chess with me for an hour.

We're interrupted by the radio – Steve saying that Mac has seen Cassandra onto a flight, but the weather is so atrocious he's not going to leave Seacouver until the following morning and that we aren't to worry. I ask the guy to relay a message that all is well here and sign off. Tessa is pensive when I tell her the news. "It's only a short delay – it makes sense not to travel at night in this."

"Yes, I know. It's silly, really. I just can't help worrying when he's away now – this is the longest he's been gone without me, and I can't help thinking, what if he meets another Immortal?"

With all the other things I've been worrying about, a Challenge to Mac is the last thing on my mind, but she's right. The man draws headhunters like dogs draw fleas. "He's going to be careful, Tessa. He has a hell of a lot to live for now."

"It didn't stop him before," she says with a little bitterness. 

"The Game found _him_ ," I point out. "He stepped away from it before, he can do it again. And he will, for you, for his son. I know that as surely as I know his name is Duncan MacLeod."

She lifts her head at that comment, and for a moment, I think I may have revealed too much. "It makes me feel so safe knowing you are there to help us, Adam." Then I feel like the veriest worm for even thinking of Mac in any way that could possibly threaten their relationship. I have nothing, can offer nothing that compares to this sweet woman. I am just one of many people who have been in love with Duncan MacLeod. I need to get over it.

I am pretty sure she doesn't sense any of my inner battle – I've had centuries of practice at keeping my feelings well-hidden – and we pass a dull, quiet evening together before she retires early around nine. Going by my considerable experience, I'd say she could be closer to giving birth than she thought, and I guess the damn birthing pool will have to wait until their second child, if there is one. Without Cassandra, it's probably touch and go whether we should go ahead with the plan to have the child born here, and I resolve to discuss the matter with Mac and Tessa as soon as he returns.

I'm still turning the options over in my minds as I fall asleep, but my dreams bode poorly for the outcome of our plans, for they're nightmares of a ferocity I've not experienced for a month or more. Thanks to Cassandra's work with me, I can, unfortunately, remember most of the details as I wake gasping, my head pounding with a vicious headache that leaves me dizzy and only just able to stand. Dammit, Cassandra has the only aspirin we'd brought with us. I need to go downstairs and see if Mac keeps any for Tessa, although it's unlikely. I think it might be an idea to look in on her before I do so – squinting at the clock through bleary eyes, I can see it's five am. She might be ready to get up, given how early she went to bed.

Her room is empty. She must be downstairs. Damn, this headache is throwing me off – I have to cling to the walls to make it down the narrow stairs. Tessa's not in the living room. Probably in the bathroom, which is where the aspirin will be, if anywhere. I make a desultory search of the kitchen. Nothing. Coffee might help, I suppose, so I put water on to boil and try to remember where Mac keeps the beans.

Maybe she can pass the pills out to me. I go to the bathroom and knock on the door. "Tessa? It's Adam. Look, I'm sorry, but is there any aspirin in there? My head's killing me." I wait. Nothing. "Tessa?"

No reply. Alarmed, and hoping desperately I'm risking nothing more than outraged modesty, I open the door. The room is empty. "Fuck!" I run out the back. It's still pitch black outside, and still pissing down. "Tessa!" I yell into the dark.

No response. Fuck, fuck, fuck. How far can she have gone? And how did she get downstairs and outside without waking me? _Why_ did she go outside without waking me?

My headache impedes clear thinking and I have to force myself to slow down, calm down, put on a heavy coat and a woollen hat, collect a torch, a pack with their first aid kit, a couple of blankets and waterproofs for her – ominously, the coat she normally wears is on the peg on the back door where it normally hangs. I also have to consider where to go – the island is large, and in the dark, may as well be the size of Seacouver.

The only thought I have is the workshed that MacLeod built for her further into the forest which she's using to create her sculptures close to the material she's making them from. It's not suitable for winter use, but it's the only other shelter on the island. I'm just about to run out the door when something stops me, and I take the minute I need to locate my sword, stuff it into my coat, and then leave. Maybe it's time I remembered exactly why I came to the island in the first place.

The pain in my head which is approaching what I imagine a migraine feels like to a mortal. The wind is masking all sound other than the one it's making. The nearly horizontal rain which whips into my eyes and frustrates my attempts to see into the darkness. It's seriously difficult to orient myself. Even though it takes precious seconds, I close my eyes, force myself to ignore the pain just as I would any other injury and center myself as Cassandra reminded me how to do. _There_ , I think, focusing on the direction of the hut, fixing where I am now, and where I will be going. Laying a map in my mind that the darkness can't hide. 

I move no faster than walking pace, because to run would be to risk falling and losing time, slipping and sliding on the drenched soil. I call Tessa's name every minute or so, listening carefully for anything that is not wind or water. My head is pounding, which I can ignore, but my vision is affected by more than the rain, and there's nothing I can do about that except move carefully.

The hut is empty, and there was nothing near the path to it. Now what? _Think, Methos_. Why would she leave the house? _Fear_. Where would she go? _To shelter_. The woods. Beyond the hut. Spreading on all sides, dense and with no marked paths. Wonderful.

All I can do is transect it carefully, but after two hours, all I have is a deeper migraine and no pregnant mortal woman. _Mac will kill me_ , I think, although my real concern is for Tessa. What could she be afraid of? The answer, unfortunately, could be just about anything, real or imaginary. 

I take my bearings again. The torch is dying, so I change the batteries. At least here the wind is muffled by the trees, and the rain is more a matter of huge drips through the trees rather than a weapon. Wet branches whipping into my face are more of a problem. I could do with a machete. 

_Oh you bloody idiot, Methos. You have a fucking great big sword, use it!_ But just as I'm reaching for it, I hear something. A moan? More like a bitten-back scream. "Tessa?"

Nothing. I shoulder my pack. There it is again. A hundred metres to my left. I call again, but then go silent, pitching my hearing for the slightest sound that might indicate her location.

Now that _was_ a bloody scream. I quicken my pace, although it's impossible to run in these conditions. "Duncan!" I hear Tessa cry. Jesus, there she is! Half hidden under a cluster of bushes, rising up slightly off the ground as my torch beam illuminates her. She flings her arm across her face. "No! Get away!"

She tries to stand, but as I get close, it's obvious why she can't. She's in labour, and not far from giving birth. "Get away, you monster! Help me, Duncan!"

I hold my arms out placatingly. "It's okay, Tessa. Duncan's away, remember? I'm here to help you."

"You're lying! He's here!"

A delusion, obviously. "Tessa, listen to me," I say carefully. "Duncan isn't here. A trick is being played on you, that's all."

She cringes away from me. "No! Duncan came, he said we had to get away from the house because you wanted to kill my baby!" She's quite done in with fear and exhaustion, but not actually hysterical. I have a slight chance of influencing her, and I have to try. I kneel beside her, switching the torch to lamp mode to cast a more even light over us both. She's soaked to the skin, although where she's lying, she's a little sheltered. She's shivering with cold, and, I would guess, pain and shock. She screams again, this time as a contraction hits her.

"Listen to me, Tessa...."

"No," she moans. "It hurts!"

I pull one of the blankets from the pack, and the spare waterproof, and wrap them around her. My own coat that I'm wearing under the waterproof, I take off and put under her head, quickly donning the waterproof again. It's too damn cold to have no protection. Her skin is icy. I take her hand and force her to look at me. "Tessa, Duncan isn't here. If he was, he'd be helping you. You're being tricked. See me, feel my hand. I'm real, and I'm going to make sure you and your baby are safe."

"Adam?" she whispers. "I'm so frightened."

"I know, child. Trust me." I help her slide a little more into the lee of the bushes. They cut out the wind but the ambient temperature is still too cold for this. Nothing I can do – she's in no fit state to move. "I need to remove your pants. Just lie still. I'll be careful."

Her pants are soaked, with rain or with amniotic fluid, I can't tell. They can go under my coat as an extra pillow. "Raise your legs, dear."

She stares at me, still afraid, but brave lass that she is, she obeys, then convulses as another wave hits her. "Now, Tessa, the baby is ready to come out. You remember those exercises you did with Cassandra? When I tell you ...."

"Adam, it's too soon, the baby will die!" she sobs.

"No, he won't. Three weeks is nothing. Besides, he's a MacLeod and a Noel. He'll be a tough little bugger."

We're out of time, and what energy she has left, we need _now_. "I need you to push, Tess. Now!"

She groans and does her best. "Again, girl!"

"Fuck you!" she screams.

"Not today. Again!"

I can see the head. "He's there, Tessa! A bit more, now!" I've got him, I have him and now he's out! In my hands. Alive, covered in blood and gunk, and utterly beautiful and perfect in every way. "Tessa, he's fine!" Just then, a reedy wail rises. Duncan's son is breathing his first taste of the world.

Tessa's head is raised as she tries to look, but she's still in some pain. Quickly I tie off and cut the umbilical cord with the scissors from the first aid kit, then I pull the other blanket from my pack and wrap the child in it. I lay him on her chest. "You have one more thing to do, you have to expel the afterbirth. Can you do that?"

"So tired," she murmurs, pushing back the blanket a little to see her son's face. "He's beautiful."

"Yes, he is. Push now, Tess."

Within five minutes, after several painful but mercifully brief contractions, the placenta comes out and after I check that it's complete, I cast it far away from us. She's bleeding a little, not enough for concern, but I need to get her and the baby into the shelter and warmth of the house. "Let me have him, Tess, I'll keep him warm."

Reluctantly she lets me take him, and I cover up her lower body with my coat which I remove from under her head. She needs the warmth more than she needs the comfort. She catches at my hand. "Whatever happens, keep him safe," she whispers.

"I'll keep you both safe," I swear. I tuck the baby and his blanket up under my sweater, and tuck the waist into my belt, so he's warm and snug in a makeshift pouch. "What did you decide to call him?"

"We didn't. Duncan thought it would be bad luck." She's shivering again, now the warmth generated by the exercise of labour is dissipating.

A loud, male voice booms suddenly. "You can call him _mine_ , Methos. Hand him to me."

I look up in shock. "Duncan?" Above the trees, dawn is doubtless breaking, but here in the depths, the dark is still complete. "When did you get back?"

"Give me my son, Methos." He approaches, his face hard. "And then get away from her."

"Duncan?" Tessa calls, puzzled. "It's all right, Adam brought him out safely."

He utterly ignores her, and that's what alerts me. My head is pounding worse, and I begin to realise that something doesn't _want_ me thinking clearly, doesn't _want_ me to realise what this is. "Keep away, you aren't MacLeod."

"Bright boy," he sneers. "Give me the child."

"Adam, run," Tessa whispers. "Save my son." 

What a choice – but she's right. I can only save one, and she can't move. "I'll draw it away," I say quickly, snatching up my sword, and bolting, leaving her, the torch, and the demon that wears Mac's face behind me.

He roars, and I can hear him crashing behind me. The child wails a little at my movements, but he is safe for now. I have to keep him that way. I need to escape this damn forest! Get to light, to clear ground. "Methoosss!" the thing screams, and I imagine I can feel its breath on my neck.

I can see a slight lifting of the gloom ahead. It must be dawn by now, but the forest is fighting me as if it is a tool of the thing behind me. Fuck! I stumble, and it's on top of me. No longer appearing as MacLeod, it would make me retch if I could get the breath. The stink of its oozing skin is incredible. It's crushing me, tearing at my body, forcing me to turn over to get at the baby. I try to hunch, to protect the child, and bring my arm with my sword across its powerful back with as much force as I can. It screams and rolls away. I scrabble up. No time even to check my precious passenger. I run, blindly, my vision pixellating and distorting, but the map I've drawn in my head tell me to go straight, straight on. I hold one arm around my chest, around the child, my sword ready in the other one.

Is it light? The trees seem less dense here. The rain, has itstopped? I could sob with relief, but there is no time. Must get to the house, must get the child safe and barricade myself in, call for help....

"Methos! Stop!" Shit! It's there in front of me, heavily muscled body towering over me, mad red eyes threatening to destroy me with their hate.

"Back, monster, I won't give him to you!"

It lashes at me with its claws and swipes my face as I stumble back. "Methos, you have to stop!"

"Never!" I scream, swinging at it with my own weapon, trying not to expose my front to its grasping paws. It clutches its side, I've made a hit. But as I try to use that to my advantage and make a run for it, it grabs my shoulders. I swing again and it drops to the ground.

I run. "Methoosss," it hisses. Still behind me, hardly stopped it for a minute ... I can hardly breathe, can't see at all. I can feel soil beneath my feet, stones. I must be on the path back the house. _Hold on, sprite,_ I say to the baby, but then there is a tremendous blow across my back and I fall, twisting desperately to avoid flattening the child. Huge pain, crippling pain in my back. I can't stop, I stagger up.

"Methos, it's me, Duncan," the monster yells.

"You're a monster," I slur. I'm hurt....but then, something in his voice.... _Listen to his voice_ , I hear Cassandra telling me. "Mac?"

The illusion shimmers, and it _is_ the Highlander in front of me, katana in hand. "Behind me, " I whisper, staggering into him.

I'm grabbed from behind, and pulled into the foul embrace of the real demon, and then I scream as I am pierced through, through my shoulder, the weapon going right into the guts of the thing. Another bewildering, blinding agony, and then I am dropped. The thing's head falls to one side, and I am released to fall almost on top of the headless corpse.

My wounded shoulder is grabbed and I'm rolled over. I squint up in the confused eyes of MacLeod. "Where is she?" he demands.

"In ... in woods .... Mac, your son...." But he's off, running towards the trees. _Duncan, junior, meet Daddy._ I groan as I pull the neck of my sweater away from me and peer in at the baby. He's asleep and quite unharmed. Typical.

I wait for my body to heal while I try and reconstruct what just happened. Our demonic friend must have grabbed me as a shield just as Mac attacked, hence the skewering of yours truly, and then Duncan took his head. Simple. But it's a bit much that the damn man had to run away and leave me with his minutes-old son like that. Speaking of which – "Let's go talk to your father," I tell the sleeping child.

Now that it's light and my headache is gone with the death of the thing rapidly disintegrating on the ground behind me (making a horrendous stench while it's about it), I realise that it's not all that far back to the forest, and while the baby needs to be in better surroundings, he needs his mother more. And his mother undoubtedly needs me, so I make the decision to go back in search of Tessa.

A journey that seemed to take an hour, running away from the demon, only takes me ten minutes now. I'm preparing to present Mac with the good news, but as I approach the spot where he is kneeling next to her, his soft keening warns me to keep my chirpy comments to myself. "Mac?"

He lifts his head and stares at me blindly. "She's dead."

"No!" She was fatigued, cold, but I wasn't gone that long.... But as I kneel beside her, take her pulse, see how her pupils are unreactive in her wide-open, unmoving eyes, I realise he's right. "Oh my God, Duncan, I'm so sorry...."

He rounds on me. "You were supposed to protect her!" he shouts, his eyes full of tears and grief.

"Mac, I had to choose! I had to save your son. She asked me to." I lift my sweater and show him the baby, go to put him in Mac's arms, but he pushes me and the child away. The baby begins to cry.

"Take it away, it's a demon child," he chokes out. 

"No, Mac! The demon wanted it, but he's human! All human!" I can't believe that MacLeod can't see this perfect child is all he had wanted.

"I don't care. It wasn't worth Tessa's life." He bows his head.

"MacLeod, he's your son!" 

I touch his shoulder, but he turns and punches me. "Get it away from me. You get away from me," he says, his voice thickened with tears. "I want nothing to do with it. Oh, Tessa, Tessa," he cries, stroking her face, pleading with her. "Why did you have to go away again?" We're forgotten.

In this state, MacLeod is no use to anyone, and possibly an active danger to both of us. Silently, I pick up my discarded coat and leave the grief-stricken man with his dead lover and take their very alive and needy child back to the empty house, once so full of life and love, and try to decide what's the best for all this broken crew of 'Ahriman's' final victims.

* * *

A year ago, this was something I never expected to do again. Stand on the quai with Methos, waiting to go onto MacLeod's barge. If a year ago, someone had told me I'd be waiting with Mac's old lover, who would be holding Mac's natural son, with a gun in my pocket which I have been instructed to use at the first hint of homicidal tendences on the part of MacLeod towards said son, well, I'd probably have called the police and had you taken away on public safety grounds. "Maybe he's not home," I whisper, although there's no real need.

"Oh, he's home. And he knows we're here. He's just deciding whether to acknowledge that or not," Methos says grimly, hefting the little bundle on his chest. The baby cries a little, snuffling. "Shhh, Xan, it's okay," he says softly, cupping the tiny head.

"What if he won't have him?"

"Then I'll rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat." He smiles without humour at my gasp. "Xan is much loved. If Mac hasn't got the sense he was born with, he'll always have a home."

I know Cassandra offered to take him in, but with Shona still recovering from the terrible accident which left her needing months of physical therapy, it really wasn't an option. My guess is that Methos probably wouldn't have let her have him anyway. I'm amazed that he can bring himself to hand the child over to MacLeod, especially when the Highlander has done nothing but brood and drink and grieve for his lost love. In the month since Methos returned from Seacouver, MacLeod hasn't uttered a word to me about him or the child. Not that we've been talking much about anything. The man makes a hermit look like a party animal these days.

Last night, Methos and I talked for a long time, about Mac, about Tessa and the baby, and about 'Ahriman', whatever it was. The best we could come up with was that the demon thing wanted to take human form. Maybe it had done this over and over to the 'champions', maybe it was the first time, who knew? – and had manipulated things to bring Tessa back and help Mac impregnate her. The baby's soul was going to be sacrificed to make a vessel for Ahriman, one that Mac and Tessa would have fought to the last drop of their blood to protect. One thing was for sure – Xan is the real child of Tessa Noel and Duncan MacLeod. The resemblance even at this early stage is uncanny. 

"Cassandra's prophecy was right all along," I'd said. "The solstice child did defeat evil one."

He gave me a humourless smile. "Her timing was off, that's all. I suppose she's happy that she wasn't as incompetent a seer as she thought she might be."

"But why did Tessa die?"

Methos got real quiet then. I think he still kicks himself for leaving her, but from the way he told it, I can't see how he had any choice. "You think maybe when 'Ahriman' died, she had to? Like he was all that was keeping her alive?"

He'd given me a real funny look then. "You could be right there. Xan lived because he got his life from her and Mac. But she didn't really belong here any more." He got a little misty-eyed then. " I wish there'd be a way to save them both."

"But that would have meant the demon would have to still be alive."

He didn't say anything to that. Either Tessa or Xan was going to be destroyed, whichever way he and Mac had called it. I'm glad I hadn't had to make the decision, but my heart aches for my two damaged friends. Methos so angry with Mac, and Mac ... well, we'd have to see about Mac.

Now, we wait, watching the boats on the river, the early morning traffic. A couple of joggers pass by, curious at the two men seemingly mesmerised by the barge in front of them. But then Methos lifts his head, like a bird dog on the scent, and then MacLeod is on the deck. "What do you want?" he barks.

"And top of the morning to you, Duncan," Methos says sweetly. "I've come to introduce you to your son."

"I don't want to see him."

"Well, fine. He's fairly indifferent on the fucking subject too, I have to say. You know babies, give them warm food, a soft breast, and they're anyone's. But you are going to bloody well look at him and acknowledge him if I have to knock you down and tie you up to do it."

Mac stares at Methos, who is not joking in the slightest, I can tell. "Why?" he says finally.

Methos walks to the bottom of the gangplank. I hang back a little. "Because it was Tessa's last wish that I look after him, and it was her last act in this world to give him life, and I'll be damned if that wonderful, beautiful woman will have died a miserable lonely death for nothing!"

Even at this distance, I can see Mac pale. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Methos is still as a stone. Xan is quiet – he's a quiet kid, Methos says. Perhaps he can sense when to keep his head down.

"Come in," Mac says gruffly, and doesn't wait for us before disappearing inside the hold. 

"Remember your promise, Dawson," Methos murmurs as we walk up the gangplank.

"Shoot first, ask questions later?"

"You got it."

The barge is...well, it's a dump. Take-out food cartons, bottles, empty cartons of juice, old newspapers, lie everywhere. The only clear space is the bed, and I'd bet the sheets haven't been changed in a month either. "My, someone's let his standards slip, haven't they, MacLeod?" Methos sneers. "Glad to see you've learned how to handle loss like a grownup in four hundred years."

"Shut the fuck up, Methos. Do what you came to do and then get out." Even from here, I can smell the unwashed, whiskey stink of the man, and it's obvious he's been breakfasting on booze. He wobbles a little – can't even stand up straight.

Imperiously, Methos kicks aside the litter, and stalks over to the bed. Gently, in complete contrast to his anger before, he unhooks the baby sling and lifts Xan out. "His blanket, please, Joe?" I fetch out a soft yellow throw which is in the duffel bag Methos brought with him, and lay it down on the bed. Methos puts the baby down. Xan gurgles at him, and Methos gives him a little tickle before straightening up. "Well, we're waiting, MacLeod."

Mac edges over, almost as if he's scared to look, and steps up to the platform. Methos moves aside, and waves his hand at the child. "Duncan MacLeod, meet Noel Alexander MacLeod. Known as Xan."

Mac looks at Methos. "Alexander?"

"It reminds me of love," Methos says wistfully. "And because, whatever you think, Damien would be just silly. Look at him, Mac. He has her eyes."

Mac reaches towards the child, almost unconsciously, and I can see the need in his eyes, which go soft and sad, like he wants to touch, but he's scared he'll break him. But then he drops his hand. "I can't," he says gruffly. "He only exists because Ahriman made him."

"No, Mac. You and Tessa made him, with love." Methos looks at Mac, pleading with him. "He's just a tiny, innocent, motherless baby."

I can see Mac's jaw twitching. You can almost see the gears turning, the war within himself. Finally, he turns his back on the bed, and his son. "He doesn't belong here."

Methos grabs his shoulder and forced him to turn around. "So, but here you are, throwing an elephant-sized sulk because a woman who was dead for _six_ years, is dead all over again?"

Mac just kind of sags. "You don't understand. I loved her. I knew her. I needed her. I miss her so much."

Tears begin to run from his red-rimmed eyes down dirty unshaven cheeks, and I can see Methos almost waver and become sympathetic until his eyes harden again. "What I understand is Xan needs you. You're punishing a mere child, blood of your blood," he says in measured tones, "because his mother died. And everyone thinks what a good man you are. You're nothing but a fucking mealy-mouthed hypocrite."

Mac lashes out, but Methos catches him and pushes him down the steps to the deck where Mac goes sprawling. "Never again, Duncan MacLeod. Raise a fist to me again while I have charge of a child, and I swear to you, you won't live long enough to need a hook."

Mac stares for a moment, then rolls over and crawls away a little, using the armchair to pull himself up. "You don't understand. I just want to be left alone. Go away, Methos. Just leave me alone." he says, weeping and wobbling back and forth on unsteady legs.

"Gladly," Methos says, gathering Xan up, handing me the blanket back, and putting him back in the sling. "Come on, Xan. Let's go hang out with some decent human beings."

Methos sweeps past MacLeod as if he isn't even there, out of the barge and onto the quai. "You don't think maybe you were a little rough with him in there?" I venture. "After all, he has lost his love. He adored Tessa."

Methos stops and turns to me, his face dark with anger. "And what about me?" he snaps. "What have I lost?"

"You went and holed up in Slovakia for eight months when you thought Mac had tried to kill you."

"That's different. No one needed me. I didn't have a son."

"Looks like you do now. Will you keep him?"

"No one else will touch him," he vows fiercely. "Especially not that drunken sot."

We all pile into my car and I drive us back to the bar. Methos has no plans – a lot depended on what happened this morning. "You flying back tonight?"

He's calmed down now, but his face is still grim, no doubt still thinking about that awful scene on the boat. "Maybe," he says, settling at a table. "Right now, it's time for Xan's feed. Can I trouble you to heat this up?" he asks, handing me a bottle.

When Methos arrived yesterday, I was given a crash course in child care, and I know exactly how long his lordship's bottle needed to be heated for, and how to test it. In a few minutes, the microwave pings, and I shake the milk and test it on my wrist. Methos does the same – not that he doesn't trust me exactly...but I guess the way the baby came into the world has made him a tad over-protective of the little mite. To my surprise he offers Xan to me. "Want to do the honours?"

"You sure you trust me?"

"God, Joe, you can be trusted with a thousand dollar guitar, I guess you can hold a baby for a few minutes." His eyes get all crinkly as he smiles at me. It's nice to see him smile again. I hope this nastiness with MacLeod won 't spoil the joy of raising his adoptive son. Because that's what Xan is, for sure.

There are few pleasures in the world like holding a soft, warm, contented child in your arms, suckling quietly, and the world around me narrows to his tiny little face. I look up after a moment to see Methos looking at me with the sweetest expression. He's totally in love with this little fella, and maybe a part of him ain't too sorry Mac turned out to be an asshole about it all.

Once Xan finishes the bottle, Methos lets me hang onto him while I burp him and rock him back to sleep. Xan, that is. Methos is well past the burping stage. "Maybe we should hang around a few days and let you play uncle Joe?" he teases. 

"Hell, I don't mind. A body could get real used to him."

"Yes, " he says with that soft look in his eyes. But then he stiffens. I recognise the signs – there's another Immortal in the vicinity. "Joe, take him out the back," he says quickly, shoving his bag into my hand. "Get him away. If anything happens, contact Cassandra. Go!"

I walk as quickly as I can but I'm not even at the back door to the bar when a voice calls. "Hold it, Dawson!"

I turn, because I recognise that voice. "Mac?"

"Joe, get the hell out of here!" Methos shouts.

"No, wait!" Mac says quickly, coming into the bar. "Don't leave, I won't hurt him."

"You're damn right you won't," Methos growls. "Dawson!"

"Hang on, Methos," I say. "Let's just listen to the man."

Methos points at me. "You," he says in a tight, angry voice, "are de-uncled, right now. Give Xan back to me."

Well, that hurt, but I hand the kid over. Methos holds him close, protectively, glaring at both of us. "MacLeod, whatever you've got to say, say it, and get the hell out. You aren't the only one deciding to get the fuck away from people who hurt you."

Mac's shaved, and showered too by the look of him, but a month's worth of drinking and not eating right, and probably not sleeping either, shows on his face, and in the way his clothes hang off him slightly. "Methos, I'm sorry about before. You caught me at a bad time.You gave me some things to think about. I just want to talk."

"So talk." Oh boy, Methos is not giving Mac an inch here. 

"Privately?"

"Joe not good enough for you, now?"

"Back off, Methos," I snap, deciding that my role here is to be the voice of reason. Again. "I'll be in my office, MacLeod. With my gun. Methos, you yell if he starts any shit. And Mac, hand over your katana."

"What?" he asks, horrified.

"Give," I say, gesturing with my hand for him to do just that. "Or not only do you not get to talk to him, you don't get to stay, period. Now hand it over, or leave."

He's not happy, but he gives me the sword. I know better than to ask Methos for his. Him, I think I can trust. He's got more to lose.

"Now play nice. You've got twenty minutes."

And with that, I leave. Don't remind them about the CCTV of course.

* * *

"You've got a bloody nerve and a half, MacLeod," I say angrily. Furious at the Scot, even angrier at my treacherous ex-friend who's just scuttled away at the first sign of trouble. 

"Look, I'm really sorry. Can't we just talk?"

He's cleaned up and wearing a suitably repentant expression, but he's fucked me over one too many times for me to buy any of that. "I tried that this morning, and you tossed us out. Again. I get the message, MacLeod. You don't want me, you don't want him. Fine. Go live with the dead."

"But I don't want to. I want to live with the living. But I wanted to live with Tessa too."

I know I shouldn't let him get to me, but the sadness in his eyes is pretty damn near unbearable. "But she's dead and there's nothing anyone can do about that, however ... however much we want it." I have to swallow before I continue. I keep seeing her bright eyes, looking at her newborn child. "Do you think she would approve of you rejecting her son? Mac, her last instruction to me was to keep him safe. I think she'd be ashamed of you now. Ashamed of demeaning her life and her sacrifice and her love this way."

"Yes, I know," he says, his voice thick and hoarse with unshed tears. "It's just ... I went through this before ... and I loved her so much ... Right now, I can't even begin to offer anything to a child."

"He doesn't need much," I say gently. "Here. He's asleep. All he needs is your arms. You don't need to talk to him, or amuse him or anything." I stand and hand Mac's son to him. I think he's too shocked to protest. "See?"

Mac sniffles, and wipes his nose on his upper arm. "He's so tiny."

"He's growing fast as a weed though. He was on the small end of normal, but he's just fine."

I guide Mac over to a chair and he sits down, obviously in a daze, staring at the little miracle. "I love him like my own," I feel I have to say. "But he's your son. He should be with you."

He goes to hand Xan back but I stop him. "Methos, you brought him into the world. Saved his life. Literally put yourself in harm's way to keep him safe. If anyone should have him, it's you. I don't deserve him. Not now."

"But he's not mine, and never will be. You don't have to deserve him. He's your son. He's Tessa's son. I'm just a caretaker." God, it hurts to say this, but already I can see how Xan is weaving his magic on Mac's battered heart just as surely as he did on mine. "Mac, he's mortal. He'll have a normal life. A happy one, if you let him. 'Ahriman' may have made the miracle happen, but he has no part of him and never will do."

A tear drips onto Xan's face, waking him suddenly and he begins to whinge, complaining at being woken from a nice post-prandial nap. He likes his routine, does our Xan. Doesn't like to have his little world upset. Mac shushes him, and, startled by a strange voice, Xan stares up at him, reaching for the long tresses dangling over him. I can see Mac is already bewitched by the tiny little fingers and the bright eyes, same as I was the moment I first saw them. "Mac, he needs you."

He gazes at me sadly, shaking his head. "No, Methos. He needs _you_." He hands him back and won't be gainsaid. Disappointed, I settle Xan back in my arms, and after a moment's grizzling, he settles down. But then Mac puts his hand on my arm. "But maybe, _you_ need me." Startled, I look him in the face. "I know what I did to you, what it was like watching me and Tessa be lovebirds around you. I don't know how you stood that."

"I understood, Mac, I told you that. I wasn't lying."

He silences me. "No, I know you aren't. But don't tell me it didn't hurt."

"No, I won't. It hurt like hell," I say honestly.

"I never meant you to be out of my life, Methos. I'll do anything to keep you there." I stare at him, wondering if he means what I think he means. He rubs my hand a little and lets it go. "Too soon, I know. And I'm prepared to wait. To help you in any way. Protect you and Xan, give you a place to live, babysit, change diapers, I'm good at that ...."

His eagerness makes me want to cry. It certainly makes me sniffle. "I, uh, told Tessa she's have to fight you to do that," I say in a muffled voice. Another tear drop lands on Xan's tiny nose and he swipes at it with a minute fist before squirming and going back to sleep. "Mac ...."

He pulls his chair closer, and clasps my hand. "Why don't you come to dinner? So we can talk?"

"Tonight? Mac, the barge is a tip!"

"Please?"

It's too soon, but how can I deny him? "Yes, all right." I know Joe must be watching us on his office monitor, and I wave at him to come back in. Mac just holds my hand, gazing at me as if I hold the answers to the mysteries of life. 

"You could even stay the night ... I mean, you and Xan can share the bed, I'll take the sofa, and...."

I put my finger on his lips. "Mac," I murmur, gently detaching his hand. Embarrassed, he lets go and moves back.

Joe comes in a moment later and surveys the scene. "Well, lookit this," he drawls. "Does this mean I get to be re-uncled?"

"Not on your life, Joe Dawson, you dirty rotten liar rat." I can't forgive him that easily. Goes against my reputation.

"Yeah, yeah," he says, not intimidated by me at all. 

Mac stands up. "I better go. I'll see you tonight." He looks at Joe. "Katana?"

"Desk. Go get it. What's happening tonight?"

"Tell you later," I say. "See you, Mac." He bends down and brushes a hesitant, chaste kiss on my cheek, and strokes Xan's downy head with a wistful look in his eyes, before leaving, not looking at Joe.

* * *

"You're gonna do what?" Joe explodes. "Methos, are you nuts?" 

"Hang on, Dawson -- who was practically throwing me into his arms ten minutes ago? I'm just going for dinner." 

"And the rest! Methos, spending time alone with him now is a bad idea. You're gonna end up hurt, or killing each other." His mixture of exasperation and fatherly concern is endearing but misplaced. 

"Keep your voice down, you'll wake him up," I say, shamelessly using Xan as an excuse. 

"Huh, that kid can sleep through an earthquake if he knows he's safe. Man, I just don't want to see you screwed up again. You've been through too much." 

His earnest grey eyes burn into me, pleading with me. "Joe, if there's one thing I've learned in five thousand years, it's that holding a grudge doesn't profit anyone anything. He's suffered as least as much as I have, and he's no more to blame than I am, or this little guy is. And...I still love him." 

He gives me a look of sympathy then. "Ain't that a bitch too. Can you forgive him? For dumping you for Tessa?" 

And that was the rub. "What would you do, if you were me?" I look down at Xan, asleep in that profoundly peaceful way that only babies seem to have. He deserves to know his father, and his father needs the love and comfort his own child can give him. In a way, my feelings are irrelevant. 

"Hell, buddy, I don't know. It's a toughie. I mean, you can say 'yeah' with your head, but what about in here?" he asks, patting his chest. "How can you be sure it won't jump out the next time you and Mac have a fight and bite you on the ass? Is that fair to Xan?" 

"No, of course not. But is it fair to either of us to let 'Ahriman's' machinations keep us apart over an unrepeatable event?" 

He shakes his head. "You're gonna do it, whatever I say. Just promise me one thing, don't run this time. I can't handle it again." 

_He is getting old._ "I'll do my best, Joe. If it was just you, I'd have no hesitation but...." 

"The Watchers?" I nod, and he looks regretful. "Okay, point taken. But one of these days, I'm gonna retire and have nothing better to do but nag you and play granddaddy to this young 'un, and then you'll have no excuse." 

"No way, Joe Dawson. If you're his grandfather, that makes you Mac's father, and I can't possibly cope with you as my father-in-law." 

That tickles him, and I spend a little more time teasing him, before I excuse myself to go upstairs to his apartment to change Xan's nappy and to make the calls I need to sort out my entangled affairs. I hadn't returned to Paris after that fateful flight to Marseilles, and dropping everything for the third time in as many years had caused something of an administrative disaster. Even though any Immortal over the age of a hundred has had to learn how to up sticks and run at a second's notice, it's tiresome if you want to resume residence in a place whence you departed so precipitously. 

Xan and I drift up and down the stairs all day as I seek relief from the tiresome tasks I've set myself. A baby in the bar is something of a novelty, and Joe's new barmaid coos and ahs over him until I'm driven out to buy lunch in absolute self-defence. But I'd forgotten the cold and it sends us back, me still unfed, to the warmth and chatter of _Le Blues Bar_ with indecent haste. A man with a infant, I'm finding, is irresistible to women – something I wish I felt like exploiting, but I'm not MacLeod. Make me wonder if _he'll_ exploit it. "You're going to have to practice that projectile vomiting, kid," I tell him as I burp him after his fifth feed that day. "Puke on the competition for me like a good boy." 

Now there's something I don't want to consider – Mac and women. But that's the $64,000 question really – after Tessa, will he want to return to the socially acceptable path of heterosexuality? Especially with a child to consider – ordinary homophobia is ugly enough, but it's nothing compared to homophobia mixed with ill-founded fears about the perversion of children. As a widower, or close enough, living alone with his son, he would be the subject of pity and concern. If I live with him – we will add that hatred to the usual kind to which we have become accustomed as Immortals. I doubt Mac has thought about this, in his haste to draw me back into his orbit. 

"What's eating you?" Joe asks as I sidle up to the bar and this time, ask for a beer. "Your face could curdle milk." 

"Gee, thanks Dawson, you're no oil painting either." Xan giggles and blows a bubble. "See? He agrees." 

"Great, now the kid is a wiseass too. Worried about tonight?" 

I take a long slurp of the beer. "So, which act have you got appearing tomorrow?" 

"Whoa, subtle, pal. I get the message. Guess you think it's pretty funny, me trying to help you out. You must have seen it all, right?" 

Sarcastic bastard. "The minute I work out what's bothering me, Joe, you'll be the last to know, I promise," I say with sincerity. The beer is good -- better than what I can get in Glenfinnan. "What is it with Scots and beer? You," I tell the child in my arms, "are going to know the good stuff, I'm telling you right now." 

"Yeah, get the cirrhosis started early." 

"Ha de ha ha. Listen, Joe, do you mind if I leave my stuff with you? I'll take Xan's bag but ...." 

"Not real sure this is going to work out, are ya?" 

"Do go and play in the traffic, Joseph. Now, I'm going to collect the bag and go, unless you want to do a spit polish on me beforehand." 

He waves a hand. "Nah, you can make a mess of your own life just fine. Just don't come crying to me about it afterwards." 

I roll my eyes at my annoying and intensely concerned friend. Really. Mortals. 

* * *

The second the old man leaves, I call a number. "MacLeod." 

"MacLeod, it's me. He's on his way. Now you hear me. You hurt him and I'll shoot you and bury you in cement. You got that?" 

"I hear you, Joe. I don't want to hurt him." 

"Well, see you don't. Don't screw up, Mac." 

I hang up, knowing that if Methos ever finds out I did that, I'm a dead man. I don't care. I ain't gonna live forever, and if I can keep my two best friends from killing each other or disappearing again, I will and damn the consequences. I just hope Mac can get his act together. He can't – I can't – afford a failure now. 

* * *

In sharp contrast to the way we were greeted this morning, Mac bounds out to meet me as the taxi drops me and Xan off on the quai. He drops a quick kiss on my cheek, pats Xan's head and hustles us in out of the cold wind and into the barge. I enter the hold, but stop dead on the landing, gobsmacked at the sight before me. Not only is every surface clean, and gleaming, there are candles everywhere, and the soft sweet scent of.... "Roses, Mac?"

He looks embarrassed. "Uh....I like roses?"

"Sure you do." It's hard to believe this is the same boat that was threatening to sink under the weight of the rubbish accumulating in its interior. "Did you get someone in?"

"I paid someone to carry away the trash, but the rest is all me. Have a seat, you want a beer? What about Xan? You want something heated up?" He's all of a flutter, dancing around the two of us, taking my bag and herding me toward the couch.

"Will you calm down, MacLeod? I'll heat up the food." I unhook the baby sling. "Here, someone needs you to hold him."

He takes Xan reverently, his big hands looking massive against his tiny son. I'm forgotten as he sinks onto the sofa, already holding the baby in a practised, comfortable way. Of course, he's looked after children before. But there's no mistaking the love and the worship building in his eyes.

Quietly I extract the formula from the duffel bag and head for the kitchen. No microwave, so it's the old fashioned way, using boiling water, which takes longer. Mac has his back to me, but all is peaceful for the few minutes it takes to heat the bottle. Xan was awake when we arrived, but hadn't started to grizzle for his feed, and is too young to care who's holding him as long as he gets food, support, warmth and love in copious quantities. He won't get fussy for a few weeks yet, by which time I hope he and Duncan are firmly bonded.

I test the formula carefully and bring it around to the sofa. Mac's head is bowed, and as I hand the bottle to him, he lifts his face to mine. To my shock, he is crying. "Mac, what's wrong?"

"It's all wrong, Methos. Tessa should be here. To see him." He hides his face again, staring down at Xan, who is just beginning to complain, and perhaps can sense Mac's distress.

I sit next to Mac, hold the bottle to Xan's mouth with one hand and sling my free arm around Mac's shoulders, hugging him close. "Come on, this one won't wait."

With a shaking hand. Mac takes over holding the bottle, and Xan's gummy little mouth latches onto it as if he's been starved for a week. "Hey, slow down!" Mac says, in a tear-roughened voice.

"It's okay, he always does that," I say gently. I stroke Mac's hair carefully, offering physical comfort. There's little point in talking about his very real grief. Such a short time after Tessa's death, it's not surprising he's so emotionally volatile.

I hear his breathing calm, and eventually his tears stop. Feeding a young baby is nearly as soothing as petting a cat, I've discovered, and Mac is not immune to the effect. With a snuffle, and vaguely pushing hands, after half an hour Xan announces that he's full, and I take the bottle away and set it on the floor. Mac doesn't even need to be told to burp him, moving him easily onto his shoulder and patting him like a pro. "He feels so right," Mac murmurs.

"You look right together, Duncan." 

But that is the wrong thing to say. "She wanted him, Methos. She was looking forward to him so much." He carefully hands Xan back to me. "I don't think I can do this." He stands up and walks away, his fists clenching, literally leaving me holding the baby.

"Maybe you can't," I say, carefully keeping my voice down. "But I can, until you're ready."

"I'll never be ready," he says gruffly, staring out the porthole at the lights on the Seine. "Everyone I love dies or get hurt too badly. I won't let him suffer that way. I can't, Methos."

"Coward."

"What?" He turns to me, startled and angry.

"You're a fucking coward, Duncan MacLeod. So afraid of pain that you don't care what you do to anyone else." Now would be a good time to leave, I think, except I haven't come to walk out. I've come here to stay. And I expected all of this and worse. Yes, I could be gentle with him, but I've learned that nice guys finish last. I didn't come here to be seen as the nice guy. I came here to win. "This child is of your clan. He bears the name MacLeod. Will you cast him out because his father is afraid of what he is? Will you do what Iain MacLeod did to Duncan MacLeod? Will you dishonour the name you bear, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod?"

"Shut up," he grits out. "You have no idea what you're saying."

"No, you're right. I have no family. I have no honour. My only loyalty is to those I love, and those they love. I don't give a damn about clans, MacLeod. I care about a very small number of people in the world. And two of them are in this room right now. But don't make me choose between you and Xan, Duncan. Because he needs me, and I love him and by God, I will save him from harm. And I will not be the one to tell him that his own father rejected him. If I leave now, I will take him, and he will never know the clan MacLeod. Never hear your name spoken to him. Never know of the woman who gave him birth, or the man who fathered him. I will not have him think that he wasn't even good enough for a coward."

"Shut up!" he screams, tearing at his hair. "You don't understand! She's dead because of me! All that happened to you is because of me!" 

His yelling rouses Xan, who begins to cry, and Mac's face twists in distress at what he's done. Before I can move to stop him, he's grabbed his coat and run out of the barge.

"Fuck," I say with feeling. Xan continues squalling. "Yes, I totally agree," I say to him, rocking him. "Yell your head off, kid, it's likely to do as much good as anything I can do."

What to do? If I leave now, I've lost, and I refuse to lose. I pat and soothe Xan absently, knowing he will cry himself to sleep soon enough with a belly full of milk. The barge looks so beautiful, and I realise that Mac really had intended to make an effort tonight. I look in the fridge and see chicken breasts marinading, and other bits and pieces for a no doubt elaborate meal. 

The roses are everywhere, like the candles. He must have spent a thousand francs on flowers. I inhale the beautiful fragrance, and feel like weeping myself. I miscalculated. I was too hard on him. I've lost him. "Oh Xan, I fucked up," I whisper to him. My only answer is his snuffly breathing, because he's asleep.

For an hour or so, I sit holding him, pondering my failure and wondering what to do. Improbably, it's my stomach that clamours for attention and rouses me from my pointless brooding. I never got lunch, and I'm hungry. 

I can leave the child safely on the wide sofa while I decide what to eat. Hell, I may as well cook a proper meal. It's barely possible that MacLeod might come back to eat it.

But he doesn't, and even after I've cleaned up, doused the candles, changed Xan after his final feed for the evening, and laid him down on the bed to sleep, me lying beside him to keep him warm and safe, there is no sign of the Highlander. It's not late, but I can expect a broken night because someone will be demanding to be fed, so I give in to my weariness and doze off, covered by the duvet from the bed. 

Only to wake with the clamour of Presence in my head, my heart racing and reaching for my sword. Xan is still asleep, the barge is in darkness. There's only one way off the boat unless we swim for it. Shit.

There isn't a hope in hell that whoever's out there doesn't know I'm here, so there's no chance of sneaking off the barge. All I can do is lure them away, give Xan a chance. Silently I move to where my coat is. Put it on, check my sword and my gun. I won't play fair. Too much at stake. But I can't be sure to win. I never can be. I pick up my mobile, dial a number. "Joe? Yes, I know it's late. Mac's gone. There's an Immortal outside the barge. I'm going to lead him away from the boat. If you don't hear from me within an hour, get over here, pick up ... pick up Xan. Take him to Cassandra. She knows what to do."

"Methos...."

"Don't argue. Just do it." 

I hang up. I move back to the bed, bend and kiss my little charge. I wish there were some words of wisdom I could think of to bless him with, but my mind is already in battle mode. If I want to see him again I have to win.

Still, I take one last look towards the bed before I slip out. Pray that Joe will do as I ask, and that he won't have to.

It's fucking freezing outside, and misty. The Presence is strong, but I can't tell where it's coming from. I move away down the quai towards the bridge, away from the barge. He's there, and I recognise him right off. "Bloody hell, MacLeod!" I say, exasperated, "why are you skulking out here?" I pull out my phone, press redial. "It's me – it's okay. Talk to you in the morning." I snap it shut and stuff it back in my pocket. "Now. Talk to me, Mac."

He's shivering with cold, and his hair is wet. It must have rained earlier, unless he went for a swim, a piece of idiocy I would definitely not put past him. "Mac? Come inside."

"I can't," he says hoarsely. "Methos, I came to say goodbye. I can't stay. The boat's yours, stay as long as you want."

"I don't want your fucking boat, you stupid sod." He shakes his head, and moves off slowly, as if he's injured, or ill. "Mac, your son. Your life."

"Leave me alone, Methos. It has to be this way," he says, not even turning, still walking away.

 _Oh no you don't, you stupid sheep shagger!_ "Like fuck, it does. This is how you deal with everything, MacLeod. You run away, and leave everyone else to clean up after you."

He snorts with derision, but at least he turns. "That's rich coming from you. A man who bolts if he even smells another Immortal."

"Yes, like I was bolting tonight. But the difference is, I run to save lives. You run – why?"

His eyes are dark, glittering in the street lights. "For the same reason, Methos."

"You know why I came outside, MacLeod? Because I felt an Immortal. There was only one way to keep Xan safe. Can you guess what that was?"

He stares. "You ... you were going to take the Challenge?" I just look at him. Let him work it out. "That call – to Joe? Methos, you were going to die for my son?"

"Those I love, and those they love. I told you. Mac, I can't protect him on my own. I need your help. He needs you."

He shakes his head wildly, his long damp hair flicking across his face. "Methos, it hurts. I can't breathe sometimes for the pain," he says, striking his chest softly. "All I know is the pain. All I can see... is her, dead. Nothing else is real any more."

"I know, I know. Let me help you. Let me try to help you, as you helped me." I hold out my hand. " Duncan. Come home?"

Trembling, he takes one step. Two. And then he is in my arms, as he is in my heart. "I love you, but I miss her so much," he says, weeping against my shoulder, his breath puffing against my neck. "It feels wrong to want to be happy, to have you again. But I need it, I need you so much. I know it can never be the same," he whispers. "But I want to make it good for you. I can try. Please let me try."

"I'll settle for try," I say, all choked. "That's all I ask. Come inside."

Xan is whimpering quietly as we go inside, and quickly I pick him up and reassure him. He's not hungry, he just woke up and found he was alone, something he very rarely is, and objected. "Mac, take those wet things off and come to bed."

He stands frozen, stock still. "Methos, are you sure?"

His voice is trembling, I suspect not so much with cold as with fear and other dark emotions. "Come," I insist, kicking off my shoes and stripping my pants off one-handed. I can leave my shirt and sweater on for now. This time I get under the covers properly, making a little nest for Xan on my side. I hear Mac slowly undress, before he crawls in behind me and I try not to yelp as his icy body touches mine. "How about next time we do this in the Bahamas, Duncan?"

I hear a choked laugh, more a sob than anything else. I can feel him trying to not invade my space. "For heaven's sake, " I say quietly but with feeling, "hold me. There isn't room for us to behave like monks." There is, in fact, but Mac needs reassurance that it's okay to feel okay.

Hesitantly he slides his arm over me and I can feel his breath at the back of my head. "I'm sorry, Methos," he whispers.

"I know," I say, reaching behind me and patting him. "But leave it. We'll only get another hour's rest before Xan needs a feed, and that's when I can hand him over to you for fatherhood to start for real." I twist and kiss him quickly, before he has a chance to back away. "All you have to do is try, Mac. All you need to do."

"I don't want to screw up, not again."

"Oh, you will. And so will I. And so will he. But let's do the screwing up together this time, okay?"

"Okay," he says, and as he kisses my neck, I can feel the curve of his slight smile. That's enough. We've got enough to build on.

* * *

I ain't seen either of them for two weeks, and even though Methos called me that first morning and told me not to panic (and why would I be panicking after two weird telephone calls in the middle of the freaking night?), that they were sorting things out, and by the way, could I send over the rest of his stuff in a taxi, I can't help but worry. To tell you the truth, I broke my promise to Mac and had a guy put on the barge temporarily. He says that he's seen 'Adam' going in and out a few times, but no sign of the baby or MacLeod. Can I help it if I'm imagining Mac dead and Methos setting up some sort of weird shrine on his corpse? Except a Quickening the size of MacLeod's would have burnt the barge to the water line, and from what I see when I 'accidentally' drive on down that way, it looks just the same as ever. It's a real cold early spring, so I don't expect Methos to be walking Xan outside anyway. But what's going on with Mac? Never known him to miss his outdoor katas, or his running.

I could whack both of them upside their heads for doing this to me. But at least Methos had kept his promise to me. He hasn't run. That has to be a good sign, right?

The bar's open seven days now, and it's doing a little better. Still doesn't mean my accounts are any more fun to do, but the acts I've been managing to book have been bringing the people in. My new barmaid, Stella, is popular, even if she is a little dippy, and she's got a friend who's gonna start in a couple of days. Young people, cheerful, friendly without being too flirty. Just what _Le Blues Bar_ needs. Hell, if this keeps up, I might even be able to retire on the joke they call a Watcher pension when I'm sixty.

I can hear Stella exclaiming over something just outside my door and wonder what the hell has started her off this time. Can't a man do his damn books in peace? I fling open the door, and then stand there with my mouth open. Methos and Mac are there, Xan in his little baby sling inside Mac's coat. "Oh, there you are, Joe," Methos says.

"Isn't he cute, Joe?" Stella says, sighing. I presume she's talking about Xan. Methos is not cute, not with that haircut.

"He sure is. Uh, you two wanna come on in? Or sit out in the bar?"

"In is good," Methos says smoothly, gliding past me. I step aside and let Mac and his burden move into the room, before signalling to Stella to get on back to work and shutting the door.

"Well, give, you two. You had me damn near crawling up the walls with worry."

"We're fine, " Mac says, a small smile on his face. I know he's including all of them in the 'we', but he still looks a little sad. Not surprising, I guess. "Sorry we worried you."

He sits on my sofa, and Methos goes and sits by him, taking his hand. "Joe will survive," he says not unkindly.

"You two sorted a few things out, I see."

They exchange an intimate, smiling look that tells me more than five minutes of explanation. "Getting there," Methos says quietly, still looking at Mac, and then down at Xan.

"And how's my grandchild?"

"I told you, Dawson, no way in hell are you his granddaddy," Methos says firmly, but with a sparkle in his eyes. "However, after consultation with my colleagues," a smile at that from Mac, "I've been convinced that I was a little hasty in stripping you of honorary uncle status. So," he says, bending and pulling something from his bag, "we'd like to reinstate you, and offer this token of our gratitude." He stands up and brings the bottle over to me.

I pick it up and examine it. It's whisky, but I don't know the distillery ... "40 year old Scotch?" I exclaim. "Mac, where in hell did you get this?"

"Hey, how come you assume he provided it?" Methos says, in pretend hurt.

"Shut up, Methos," Mac says, nudging him. "A few years ago I bought up a bankrupt distillery, and they had a few casks of whiskey they'd laid down just after the war. I had it all bottled. It's only known to me and a few of my closest and most cherished friends. Joe, I'd like you to have this in appreciation of what you've done for me and Methos and ... Xan..."

"And what my tight-fisted friend hasn't told you is that you will receive a bottle from this reserve every year for the rest of your hopefully very long life," Methos says, teasing Mac. "And he also has failed to mention that we've brought another one along to wet this young fellow's head. Seems that in all the confusion, we all forgot to welcome him into this big old bad world."

He pulls another bottle from his bag and puts it on my desk. "You got those special glasses of yours?"

"Sure." Bending over, I wipe a discreet little tear from my eye. Damn Immortals, Just when you think you got them pegged.... I pull the glasses out of my desk drawer. "Speaking of the kid, is he alive under there?"

Mac smiles. He's subdued, for him, but he's radiating a quiet contentment that makes me glad to see it. I don't know what Methos has been doing to him, but it appears to suit him. He stands up and sheds his coat. "Don't wake him up," he warns, as he moves closer and lets me take a peek.

"This fatherhood thing agreeing with you?" I ask.

He puts his arm around Methos possessively and draws him close. "It agrees with both of us. We're going to be co-fathers."

Methos looks a little embarrassed, but he's happy too. "Hell, that's what I thought you'd do," I lie. "It figures, two daddies, two swords, one to spoil him, one to tan his ass for him."

"No one is going tan his ass," Mac insists. "I had enough of that when I was a youngster."

"We thought we'd try emotional cruelty instead," Methos quips. Yeah, right. That kid is never gonna hear an unkind word in his life, if these two guys have anything to say about it. "You're holding onto that Scotch like Xan with his feed, you know. Care to share?"

Grumbling at the ungraciousness of my visitor, I dole out generous slugs each into three glasses, then hold mine aloft. "Well, here's to the health, long life and happiness of one Noel Alexander MacLeod." I sip the old, fine spirit, appreciating the smooth way it goes down.

" _Fad do ré gun robh thu slàn. Móran làithean dhuit is sìth, le d'mhaitheas is le d'nì bhi fàs_ ," Methos says to Xan, tossing off his own drink. I look at Mac, puzzled.

"'May you be healthy all your days. Live long and peacefully, and may your goodness and wealth increase,'" he translates. "Methos, that's a wedding blessing."

The old man shrugs. "Who cares? And you, Mac?"

" _Gum bi thu, mo mhacan, fallain, ionraic, sona air feadh do bheatha gu lèir,_ " he says softly, stroking Xan's head with a dreamy look in his eyes.

"'May you, my little son, be healthy, upright and happy throughout your life,'" Methos obliges. He bends and kisses Xan, and then does the same to Mac. " _Mo gràdh_ ," he says quietly, and I can guess what that means. _Beloved_.

I clear my throat. "Anyways, the boy's gonna be okay now you two got your acts together, right?"

"Right, Uncle Joe," Methos says sweetly.

Xan blinks himself awake, and gurgles. "Oh, so someone's decided to join the proceedings," Mac says. "I want you to know that he's not to be served in this establishment until he's thirty-five, Joe."

"Thirty-five? Sixty-five, Mac," Methos corrects. "And no strange women, and Amanda can only see him if we're both there, remember?"

I reach out and signal Mac to hand the bub over, and then I settle him in my arms. "Poor kid, why not lock him up in a monastery while you're at it?"

Methos appears to give the idea serious consideration. "What do you think, Mac? Guarantee him a long life that way."

Mac hugs his lover closer. "No, Methos. It'll just feel longer. Trust me on this."

Methos gazes into his eyes. "Always, Mac."

"Oh puhlease, take it outside. Let me have a few minutes alone with my nephew, let him know about a couple of crazy Immortals he's gonna be spending the next eighty years with."

"A hundred, Joe. Xan is going to make a century or my name isn't Adam Pierson," Methos says, his eyes twinkling.

"Slight flaw in the logic there, beloved," Mac says dryly, steering him out the door. "Since you're so keen on babysitting, we'll be back in a couple of hours, Joe. Methos is going to help me buy baby clothes. Xan's been fed, and there are spare diapers in the bag."

"Sure, pal," I say, waving him away. After the year I've had, looking after a six-week-old infant is nothing.

"Two hours," Methos protests. "Mac, it's a bar. A house of ill-repute. God knows what could happen to him!"

"Methos, shut up," Mac says kindly, and winks at me as he pushes Methos ahead of him. "You'll be okay?" he asks me.

"Go on, I'll be fine," I say. _And so will you, Mac,_ I smile to myself. At last, I think things may just be be all right.


End file.
